'Rights and Freedoms'
There's no such thing as a "right" to violate rights. This is true no matter how big and passionate a majority favors and benefits from it; and no matter how small and lackadaisical a minority opposes and suffers from it. Similarly, no individual, group, society, or government is ever legitimately "free" to violate freedom. All claims to the contrary are, ultimately, self-refuting contradictions.
Rights and freedoms belong, by nature, to the Holy Individual -- the cynosure of the universe. No collective or state -- however strong their wants and needs, and however morally and practically "good" they and their proposed action is -- can ever trespass these inalienable rights and inherent, intrinsic, ineluctable, inborn freedoms.
The individual liberty of the Sacred Self is pure and inviolable by all, for all time, in all instances and situations whatsoever. To attack -- or even remotely, minutely, temporarily diminish -- individual liberty is forever inhuman, bestial, savage, barbaric, injust, and immoral. [from June 13th, 2008]
The West is currently fighting a rather difficult two-front war against jihadism and the jihadis. This is both an intellectual battle and a military one. In this death-struggle, the West is overwhelmingly strong in wealth, technology, and arms -- but remarkably weak in philosophy and morality.
The West today pretty much lacks all philosophical self-confidence and moral certainty. We may be rich, advanced, armed to the teeth and as strong as Superman -- but we're intellectually bereft. In this fight-to-the-finish, the West almost seems to yearn for death -- especially in Europe. Today's Western liberalism is a culture largely animated by self-hatred and dedicated to self-destruction.
In this odd, low-level war, the West is struggling for the hearts and minds of average Muslims, but against their ideologically-driven warriors. The first group can be reformed, and converted to civilization. The second group is beyond hope, and needs to be utterly neutralized -- or even exterminated.
In this world-wide battle-royal, the enemy jihadists take the form of soldiers, insurgents, guerrillas, and terrorists. They also take the form of civilian leaders, ideological recruiters, local organizers, international suppliers, charity-donors, and aid-workers. Both groups need to be obliterated from earthly existence.
But the West also needs to refute and defeat jihadism. We need to successfully philosophically damn and morally condemn it. If we do this effectively -- with truth and justice on our side -- the jihadis will almost immediately die out. By intellectually destroying the ideology of jihadism, we will extirpate the derivative jihadists -- cut them off at the root.
Therefore the West desperately needs to understand how to efficaciously argue against the deadly philosophy of jihadism. We need, at long last, to learn how to persuasively prove it false and evil -- to us and them. One obvious but powerful technique is our intelectual leaders must convincingly group jihadism with its close cousins, fascism and communism.
But to effectively do this, we must refute and defeat Islam as well. That's because this is jihadism's clear intellectual foundation. Therefore we need to philosophically damn and morally condemn it. Islam as we know it needs to be ruthlessly trashed, bashed, and smashed by the West.
To state it unequivocably: the ideology of historical and current Islam itself needs to be brutally attacked and ruthlessly destroyed. Why? Because it leads directly to jihadism, the jihadis, and our throats. [from February 14th, 2008]
The battle of Good vs. Evil is mostly, fundamentally, and most importantly an internal phenomenon. Your main enemy -- and ally -- is the man in the mirror. The principal battlefield between life and death, health and sickness, strength and weakness, greatness and pettiness, pleasure and pain, happiness and misery is between your ears.
Your main job in life is to work hard and smart. You're mostly dealing with -- not your fellow man, but -- physical and mental reality: with somehow filling 24 hours a day, finding meaning and purpose, and expanding and improving yourself. Your principal enemies in all this are being lazy and ignorant, as well as being dishonest and cowardly. You also need to try to avoid irrationality at all costs.
Of course, work isn't everything. In the Game of Life, play and fantasy and rest are important too. These are valuable both for their own sake and pleasure, and to enhance and uplift your main and bedrock activity: working hard and smart. A balanced and diverse life, which contains all four crucial elements, certainly seems best and richest and the most fun.
Naturally, external living enemies can and do hurt you. This mainly includes tyrants, criminals, liars, and betrayers. But the worst enemy and focus of evil -- unless your social circumstances are truly extreme -- is always the low, slow, dull, weak, mediocre, inferior version of yourself. This ignoble, depraved, dark side of the Self is mostly what you have to strive to subdue, overmatch, and crush -- and on a generally continuous basis, no less.
Christianity claims that for you to be truly good, and see evil defeated inside of you, you have to be "born again." Nietzsche claims you have to overcome your aboriginal self and become a "superman." However you look at it, the ferocious and never-ending battle between good and evil is mainly that of repeatedly choosing and being your best possible self -- or at least immensely trying for this.
Shakespeare argues: "This above all: to thine own self be true." But it isn't easy or automatic. Aristotle calls such ethical behavior a matter of developing and maintaining good habits.
You seem to have to work hard and smart, to work hard and smart, if you want to be your best and truest self. Having Good triumph over Evil inside yourself is an unending challenge.
In the Game of Life -- as you work away, and struggle along -- you also have to be brave and honest. This mainly means openly, directly facing yourself -- including your weaknesses, failures, and diabolical inner demons. This mostly means not lying to yourself -- the greatest of sins, but the easiest error to slip into. Courageously confronting external enemies and being straight with your friends is certainly important -- but this isn't the essence of the virtues of bravery and honesty. You mostly have to fiercely, intransigently fight the ever-present internal enemy -- and work hard and smart in this regard too. [from January 11th, 2008]
For over half a century American blacks have been lead by Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Louis Farrakhan. Yet all five are scumbags in general and racists in particular. This includes the two dead ones, who have been hilariously and outrageously "deified" -- despite their vast sliminess and bigotry.
All five black "leaders" are open demagogues who essentially hate Western civilization, America, white people, Jews, freedom, and capitalism. All champion the massive evil of socialism combined with the stunning injustice of "affirmative action." And all have a personal attitude and philosophy which can probably best be summed up as "hate whitey, kill whitey."
So how did these five would-be tyrants and genocidists ever get to be black leaders in the first place? Is this really the best black America can do in terms of finding a public face and voice? And who remotely thinks these five are legitimate civil rights leaders or champions of genuine peace, harmony, and brotherhood between whites and blacks?
Deep down all seem secretly ashamed to be black. All five evidently hate themselves and "their own kind." And all seem to be drop-dead dedicated to bringing on some version of a race war and civil war, as they go forth to decimate both whites and blacks.
Aside from their demonic love of Big Brother and hard-line institutionalized bigotry, all five personally-repellent Jesus-freaks seem fanatically dedicated to petty self-aggrandizement and a personal lust for power. Their demagoguery and passion for tyranny seems to know no bounds.
So why in hell are these miserable, god-awful, rat-bastards considered to be black leaders? Can't black Americans pick any smarter or wiser? What does it say about black society that when it comes to leadership: Martin, Malcolm, Jackson, Sharpton, and Farrakhan -- these notorious monsters and racist vermin -- are evidently the best blacks can do? [from November 30th, 2007]
America and the West are engaged in a War on Islam -- not Muslims per se.
The ideology of Islam needs to be savagely attacked and utterly destroyed. But not necessarily all Muslims. Only the ones who are activist: firstly the fighters, and secondly the ones who finance them. And, yes, this includes all the highly-respected tribal leaders and small, humble, "innocent civilian," tribal peoples in Iraq and Afghanistan (and Pakistan) who give the jihadis food and shelter.
But we all mainly need to hate and fight and annihilate a philosophy -- not a people. The evil Muslim philosophy turns the Muslim people into monsters.
George Bush and all the ignorant, depraved, intellectual leaders of the world talk unceasingly about a war on terror -- which is a tactic. But we need to make war against an ideology -- a set of ideas and ideals.
The key point is normal Islam is hideous and loathsome. Not just radical or extremist Islam. Normal Islam is like normal communism and Nazism. George Bush and all our leading thinkers are a real nightmare and true Western treasonists in forever praising normal Islam.
We're never going to win this war if we keep condoning and praising moderate, average, mainstream Islam. We just about can't lose if we morally and intellectually condemn it. Victory will come quickly and easily if we openly, loudly, proudly state that Islam is wildly evil, and we hate the guts of all who believe in it and practice it.
The way all this talk manifests itself -- or at least the way it should -- is in America and the West openly excoriating and brutally attacking the Islamic beliefs and practices of jihad and sharia, which means all jihadists and shariaists. Anyone who in any significant way militarily or financially advances the evil cause and belief-system of jihad and sharia should be killed. [from November 1st, 2007]
Ayn Rand wrote cultism and "Randroidism" into the very warp and woof of the early Objectivist movement. It's found in most of the didactic speeches of her 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged, and in virtually all of her philosophic essays of the 1960s and 1970s. This malign presence has badly hurt the development of Objectivist thought -- and the spread of Objectivist philosophy -- from the beginning. The profound evil which is Objectivist religiosity needs to be brutally crushed.
The Objectivist universe became considerably more normal and healthy -- less hideously cult-like -- after the Rand-Branden split of 1968. It was like a minor deliverance -- a joyous note of liberation. Objectivism became still more philosophically natural and proper after Rand's death in 1982. Intellectual and psychological freedom rose -- even tho' few Objectivists could truly be called open-minded, free-thinking, or spiritually ascendant.
Progress was also made during the period of the high-minded Objectivist Forum from 1980-1987, and with the shocking expose which was Rand's biography in 1986. Still more progress came -- more normalcy and vitality -- with the Peikoff-Kelley split in 1988 and the consequent founding of IOS in 1989. The latest major ascent toward health and happiness in the Objectivist movement was with the beginning of SOLO in 2002.
And it may even be true that ARI recently muddled along and obliquely decided -- finally and at long last -- to engage with public intellectuals starting in early 2006. Altho' ARI is far too slimy, cowardly, and dishonest to openly announce this change of policy, nevertheless this rather marvelous turn in the right direction may be continuing even as we speak. Perhaps by 2010 or 2020 ARI will actually allow objective and critical analysis of the thought of Objectivism and the life of Ayn Rand!
Let's hope this trend toward treating the thinking and theories of Rand like the thinking and theories of Aristotle, Cicero, Voltaire, and Hayek continues. Let's hope the Objectivist movement continues to become ever-less cultish and religious -- and ever-more rational and philosophic. [from August 17th, 2007]
In The Future of Liberalism (1934), John Dewey co-opted the name "liberalism" to describe an ideology that was actually "progressive." Dewey described the "old liberalism" as committed to protecting the individual’s rights of free speech, religion, private property, and government economic non-intervention. Dewey considers the old liberalism to have lacked the principle of "historic relativity." This "deficiency" led the old liberals to declare their principles immutable natural laws. They advocated as an eternal truth the confinement of government to protecting against the infringement of the individual’s liberty to action on the part of the others.
Dewey does not share the old liberals' belief in the "individual as something given, complete in itself, of liberty as a ready-made possession of the individual, only needing the removal of external restrictions to manifest itself." Rather he claims that this belief has degenerated into "pseudo-liberalism" or the advocacy of a laissez-faire economy and limited government that he opposed in his own day. Dewey’s "new liberalism," i.e., progressivism, holds that the individual is "something achieved with the air and support of cultural, physical, economic, legal, and political institutions." The role of government according to progressivism is not merely to remove active violations of the individual’s freedom but to promote and cultivate positive institutions to assist in the development of individuality.
Furthermore, Dewey believes that progressivism is committed to the idea of historic relativity and holds that "the content of the individual and freedom change with time; this is as true of social as of individual development." In this way, progressivism departs from the Founding Fathers’ understanding of fixed self-evident moral principles -- such as those expressed in the Declaration of Independence -- which hold true for all men in all times and places. Rather, progressivism adheres to evolving standards of justice, the proper role of government, and the individual itself. The ends of Dewey’s progressivism are claimed to be the "full freedom of the human spirit and of individuality," which entails "full cultural freedom" to share in "the resources of civilization" -- an extremely broad aspiration whose content changes and evolves with the times.
Dewey’s appropriation of the term "liberalism" to mean advocacy of extensive government intervention in the economy completely reversed that term’s prior meaning. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, liberalism stood for limited government, free enterprise, and the sovereignty of the individual in all areas regarding his own life. It is time to return to that ideal and expose "new liberalism" as an unjustified name at the least. While the old liberalism truly empowered and liberated the individual, the new liberalism shackles him under an ever-amassing array of state controls. [by Gennady Stolyarov II; from July 27th, 2007]
The price of liberty isn't "eternal vigilance," as Thomas Jefferson says, but a correct definition. One can never obtain freedom until one knows precisely what freedom is.
Individual liberty is best defined as "The unlimited right to think, say, and do anything, but absolutely anything, that you wish; provided you respect the equal and concomitant right of your fellow man to think, say, and do anything, but absolutely anything, that he wishes. None of these rights compete, conflict, contravene, or contradict; rather, all of them supplement, compliment, coincide, and reinforce."
Freedom for individuals means no initiation of physical force nor use of financial fraud against others. Freedom for government means no taxation or regulation of the economic or socio-personal behavior of individuals. [from June 28th, 2007]
Nowadays virtually everyone is a fighter for, and champion of, peace. Especially world peace.
Everybody everywhere supports "peace" -- whether it's the old-time peace treaties between the former Soviet bloc and the West, or today's peace movement between the Arabs and the Israelis.
Certainly the largely-socialist Left is filled with unending proponents and activists "struggling" for peace. But the largely-religious Right works hard for peace too. The world's conservatives are led by the Christians and Muslims, both of which seem to promote and exemplify peace explicitly. Jesus is almost universally known as "the prince of peace," while Islam, even in the post 9/11 era, is generally known as "the religion of peace." All the men of god evidently love peace.
Moreover the United Nations -- to which all countries belong -- is absolutely, and even fanatically, dedicated to "peace." The UN militantly and unalterably promotes peace and opposes "war" in virtually all their respective forms.
Thus everyone everywhere sighs, whines, and weeps for peace. Kumbaya idealists and utopians piteously crying for peace constitute virtually the totality of the current human race.
It's incredibly important to note that none of the above-mentioned groups and institutions -- Left, Right, Christians, Muslims, UN -- favors freedom over peace. None advocate, champion, or ferociously fight for the values and goals of liberty, justice, and individual rights -- as opposed to peace. Just the opposite.
At best, all the groups above fatuously, depravedly see these political and socio-economic values as equal or concomitant. At best, freedom and peace are one to them. At least, provided you don't talk about or emphasize freedom too much.
But the fact is, peace without freedom is worthless. And freedom always and necessarily entails peace. It invariably generates a just, honorable, and lasting peace, no less. So the value system of all the peoples and belief-systems mentioned above is catastrophically wrong.
What the world needs right now is a mighty war -- a war for individual liberty. What the planet currently desperately lacks, but could surely use, is not peace, but a rousing, thunderous, massive war.
We need to start a war movement -- a full-scale assault on tyranny and injustice. We should wage a merciless, vicious, full-throttle war against the peaceniks and peace-mongers -- and in favor of individual liberty. We need to create an active, aggressive, attacking movement for political and socio-economic freedom. And this pro-liberty war movement needs to savagely crush the worldwide peace movement. [from June 15th, 2007]
There are big problems today in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and virtually the whole of the Muslim Middle East. But, as always, Westerners don't have the slightest thought of accurately, truthfully naming the problem or accurately, usefully identifying the enemy. If we did, that would be Islam. You know -- the evil, loathsome, belief-system of jihad (war) and sharia (slavery)?
But virtually every Westerner today passionately, emphatically prefers to lie about this, and say the problem and enemy is merely radical, extremist, fundamentalist, fascist, militant, political, what-have-you Islam. Meanwhile, back at Reality Ranch, virtually the whole backward, weakling, poorhouse Islamic region of the planet is a kind of living hell due to normal, average, and moderate Islam.
When will we in the West learn to tell the truth with no more of these "great religion of peace hijacked" lies?
When will we declare war on the various jihadi groups and kill every last one of them?
When will we smash the wildly illegitimate and threatening dictatorships Of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Sudan, etc.?
When will we take back our Mid-East oil and land which they wantonly stole from us via "nationalization"?
When will we at least break diplomatic relations with all of them and heavily morally condemn them?
When will we at least attack them economically by boycotting "their" oil and refusing to be "sell them the rope" traitors who pass along high tech goods, services, and ideas -- especially oil and military ones?
When will our "useful idiot" writers and leading thinkers stop being so useful and idiotic?
Today's Western "civilization" is clearly evil, stupid, and suicidal. In many ways we deserve to be enslaved or destroyed by these Muslim mutants, monsters, morons, and mincing milksops. [from March 8th, 2007]
Every year, dozens of outrages perpetrated by it merely serve to illustrate what should be an obvious point: The United Nations has no right to exist. At the least, no civilized or free nation should care or dare to be a member.
The UN is essentially an organization of dictatorships and appeasers of dictatorships. It's a kind of global Murder, Torture, and Slavery Inc. No nation or government of any decency or humanity can properly belong to it. Not unless their goal is simply to brutalize or destroy mankind.
The alleged purpose of the UN is world peace. This multi-national organization supposedly tries to resolve issues and problems thru reason-based dialog and negotiations. But the profound reality here is "peace" is a false ideal.
When it comes to government and international relations, the great political ideal is liberty, justice, and individual rights. What all states and their citizens desperately need -- first, last, and only -- is political freedom. Once this is established, all other socio-economic problems and cultural difficulties on the local and international scene virtually solve themselves.
Moreover "peace" -- the invariably trumpeted refrain of all tyrannies -- is a thing which is just about never realized with totalitarian regimes. And it's a thing which is just about automatic with free states. So peace by itself is a hopeless or pointless goal.
But the United Nations is also dedicated to other mistaken ideals such as "security" and "stability," along with "self-determination" and "democracy." Still other false gods which the "conflict resolution" mandarins of the UN worship are "non-violation of national sovereignty" and "non-interference in internal affairs."
These last two are particularly loathsome ideals when it comes to dictatorships. But the United Nations seems to love the misery and death-agony of the citizens of these dysfunctional and dictatorial states.
Altho' a similar type organization of civilized and free states might well be legitimate and useful, the current UN is a garrulous, red-taped, anti-freedom, illiberal hellhole of bureaucracy and tyranny -- of boredom and yet terror -- where the barbarians aren't just at the gates, but right inside. The United Nations is a worthless, counterproductive criminal syndicate and global monstrosity which is the pure enemy of America and the West, and which needs to be eradicated from this earth. [from September 26th, 2006]
True and proper liberals are pure believers in, and practitioners of: reasonism, individualism, libertarianism, heroism, and transcendentalism. They are also unapologetic and emphatic world revolutionaries. This is so, however much it may bore and scare the naturally indifferent, timid, and reactionary outside world.
The Beatles were right in 1967 when they said: "We all want to change the world." But more important than planetary revolution is personal revolution. Or at least evolution. In the game of life, becoming a Nietzschean an superman is always Job One.
This job -- this intense sacred moral duty -- is also much harder than mere world revolution. Any jerk and loser can be wildly successful at social reform. But can he improve and reform himself?
Personal revolution and the ascent of the Holy Individual is always far more challenging -- and even far more "earth-shaking." And yet, rather blissfully, this is also considerably more accessible and possible. The all-important phenomenon of self-improvement also allows any potential world revolutionary to teach and lead in the best way possible: by example. [from June 16th, 2006]
According to the Nobel Prize winning liberal theorist Friedrich Hayek, intellectual liberalism mostly died out by World War I and 1914. But even without this noble ideal, many of Samuel Huntington's "clashes of civilization" continued, and are with us yet. The main ones probably were and are:
All these fights are terribly important. But liberalism today is surpassingly bad. Today's version of Western liberal culture is so weak, insipid, and feckless that few people today have anything more than a slight and casual idea of who's right and who's wrong in the above seminal, world-shaking clashes. Today's version of Western liberal philosophy is so false and wicked that even clear, clean, obvious battle royals between Good and Evil are observed by practically everyone alive with ambiguity, confusion, indifference, and wholesale ignorance. Today's version of Western liberalism is so illiberal that in the above monumental wars between civilization and barbarism almost no one can distinguish the blazing obvious good guys from the blazingly obvious bad guys.
The reason for these absurdities and monstrosities is plain: Political correctness and multiculturalism rule the world. Moral equivalency and cultural relativism rule the world. Intellectual and moral bankruptcy rule the world. Stupidity and depravity rule the world. Raw irrationality rules the world.
Pure liberalism, in contrast, is very far off. The culture, philosophy, morality, and politics of definitive, ultimate, perfect, final stage liberalism is very far off. [from June 1st, 2006]
Today's proto-liberal thinkers are pretty confused about the subject of children and child abuse. Objectivist-style proto-liberals even go so far as to claim that there's no such thing as "children's rights."
Almost all would-be liberals today condemn the coercive child labor laws which began in about the 1820s in the West. And almost all condemn the compulsory child education laws which began in about the 1850s. Proto-liberals see these as violations of the rights of parents. They see them as government tyranny.
But the reality is children have Natural Law based, inalienable rights too -- just as do high-order animals. Neither can be treated as the inanimate property of their "owners."
And a strong case can be made that forcing five- to ten-year-olds to work 12 hours a day -- as was common in northern England and elsewhere -- is a form of slavery. A similarly strong case can be made that denying a child an education is a form of mental robbery and spiritual impoverishment. Aristotle claims that "The educated are as different from the uneducated, as the living from the dead." So one could argue that depriving a kid of an education is a kind of intellectual and psychological murder.
Objectivists, libertarians, Austrians, and modern classical liberals also don't seem to understand the subject of religion and children. Old-style semi-liberals from the 1800s -- who weren't all that religious themselves! -- nevertheless thought it was monstrous to bring up a child without god. They thought it denied him a lofty spirituality for his present and a hope of immortality for his future.
And today's proto-liberals aren't all that different. The majority think that belief in god is basically "good" for the individual -- and for society. And they think each parent has the "right" to brain-wash his kid with any religious belief he wants.
But the fact is "god" is a pure lie and a pure evil. Any parent or adult which "teaches" a child about religion -- except as a warning -- is guilty of severe mental cruelty and psychological rape.
All of the above constitutes horrific child-abuse. Kids really do have certain inborn and untouchable rights which have to be respected by all. And society is morally and legally obligated to protect children from any abuse and rights-violations -- even, and especially, by their parents.
Today's proto-liberals -- or maybe pseudo-liberals -- desperately need to rethink some of their theories on children and child-abuse. [from May 12th, 2006]
Altho' most people consider the "god-fearing" to be sweet, gentle, quietly hopeful folk, the fact is: those who believe in "god" have a strong tendency to be Russian ax-murderers.
This is based on the religious idea -- as taught by Paul, Luther, and many others -- that by faith alone is the god-believer "saved" -- not by commiting virtuous acts. Doing good and avoiding evil isn't important. Killing the innocent isn't a problem. But "losing faith" is.
Thus anyone anywhere who causes a religionist to become less confident in his faith and supporting irrational beliefs is rightly considered to be a terrible threat to the believer. This awful faith-diminishing individual -- who may be a tool of Satan, if not Satan himself -- might well cause someone to "fall out of grace" with god and thereafter "burn in hell forever." Thus this horrific misleader and anti-faith "snake in the grass" is properly ax-murdered as soon as possible by all good people.
Moreover any person any time who talks or acts sensibly, or displays good sense, or has notable common sense, is also legitimately considered to be a massive enemy. In order to maintain their superstitions and faith, religionists need to be forever zealous, fanatic, lunatic, and even insane. They can never be calm, collected, normal, or natural about these things. Thus any man of sense -- by his very lifestyle and existence -- is a huge threat to necessary religious mania which enables the loyal theist to get to "heaven."
Worst of all for the faithful is the man of reason. People who believe in and follow reason, rationality, logic, and science are the most monstrous and deadly of all to a holy man. Every word these reasonists utter and every tiny act they engage in is a horrific threat to the man of god. The religious belief-system is completely vulnerable. This is because reason and faith are diametric opposites, pure enemies, and utterly incompatible. Thus all rational men -- by the 'logic' and 'reason' of religion -- should be brutally slaughtered on the spot. Indeed, ax-murdering is too good for them. [from February 28th, 2006]
George Bush, Natan Sharansky, many neo-conservatives, and many others nowadays are very determined to bring democracy to the world, especially the Third World. But democracy isn't all that important or beneficial. Indeed, democracy is sometimes positively evil. It can be bad in theory and practice.
Under democracy imbecilic low-lives and ingenious saints have the same number of votes. What an injustice! And since mediocrities and philistines invariably outnumber their opposites, this generally puts the government into the hands of the incompetent and the depraved. By itself democracy often leads to mob rule, criminal rule, dictatorship, and horrific tyranny. This sheeple, mass-man, lowest common denominator, false ideal often leads to Hitler and Hamas.
In the end, democracy is pretty much garbage. It's nothing, really.
Freedom is everything. Individual liberty is the beginning, end, middle, and totality of government. It's the whole of proper socio-economics, political science, and the law. Nothing else matters a jot.
Democracy, republicanism, a constitution, a bill of rights, self-rule and autonomy, one man one vote, separation of legislature, executive, and judiciary, checks and balances, an independent judiciary, objective law, a free press, and even rule by law and not men are all basically trash. At the least, they aren't intrinsically worthwhile or valuable in and of themselves. They're merely methods of gaining and maintaining freedom. They're just tried and true tools used toward the disideratum of individual liberty.
Even if wierd space aliens invaded the planet, and set up an inherited monarchy -- based on theocracy, patriarchy, and primogeniture, no less -- no earth creature would have the right to complain about these "foreign devils" and "extra-terrestrial conquerors" provided the government set up was a pure "liberia" or "libertaria." So long as these perhaps bizarre, hideous, nightmarish ETs imposed a government based on pure and total freedom, justice, and individual rights, all humans would be utterly morally compelled to thank them, not curse or fight them.
All hail Kang and Kodos! [from February 10th, 2006]
The purpose of philosophy seems to be threefold: understanding the universe, changing the world, and improving the self. In other words: learning as much as possible about physical, social, and personal reality. But why should one go on a long and arduous Holy Grail quest to grasp the nature of nature, society, and self? Quite simply for the heroic reason of individual greatness and happiness. For the reason of making life worth living, and even of being a type of god.
Now, philosophy is genuinely scary in that it seems to command you to become a world revolutionary. That seems to be the upshot of point two above. But it should be borne in mind that the main social reality and job for the Sacred Self is to comprehend and manipulate his own small world of friends and aquaintances. And generally this last task is mostly under his own control and within his own power. Thus the individual needn't necessarily spend large amounts of time and energy involved in the extremely difficult and dangerous work of overthrowing the planetary order. His main job, as regards philosophy purpose number two, is to improve his all-important inner circle.
Philosophy seems to be a very strong vehicle for uplifting the One -- the cynosure of the universe -- and for enhancing the quantity and quality of his pleasure in life. A largely true, rational, relevant, helpful philosophy -- like that taught by Rand, Aristotle, Epicurus, and Zeno -- seems like a great tool and asset in "understanding the universe, changing the world, and improving the self" as above. [from January 1st, 2006]
The ancient Greeks coined the term "philosophy" to mean "love of wisdom." Webster's 9th New Collegiate Dictionary (1988) defines philosophy, in part, as "the persuit of wisdom" and "a search for a general understanding of values and reality." The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (1995) defines it, in part, as "rationally critical thinking, of a more or less systematic kind, about the general nature of the world (metaphysics or theory of existence), the justification of belief (epistemology or theory of knowledge), and the conduct of life (ethics or theory of value)."
Philosophy can also be seen as an instruction manual about, and guide to, the nature of the world, society, and individual. It explains how best to live inside these three, and with these three. Philosophy also explains how you -- the cynosure of the universe -- can be your truest and best, your happiest and greatest.
Nowadays no fully-developed philosophy or ideology loves wisdom or understands reality better than Objectivism. No thought-system is as helpful and useful at describing society and how the Holy Individual should live in it. Today's Objectivism knows Mother Nature, humanity collectively, and the noble self best of all. It explains how to exploit and get the most out of all three.
Objectivism is a philosophy which can, and probably will, spark a world revolution. It will eventually inaugurate a new Age of Reason and Second Enlightenment.
But, more immediately, Objectivism can spark a revolution inside of you. This is the most important thing of all. A life of sheer fun, pure pleasure, and virtually limitless joy isn't easy to get -- but Objectivism outlines the best current path to it. [from December 6th, 2005]
People who are considering embracing the philosophy of Objectivism should be well aware: Many Objectivists today are religious dogmatists who belong to a sickly cult, not a healthy philosophical school. Many are highly irrational, illiberal, self-abnegating, and self-destroying. They worship Ayn Rand and Objectivism, not truth and reality. They're slavishly loyal to their collective and sect, not their own individual happiness. These people are wierd, malicious, inhuman, anti-social, mindless, soulless "rationalists" and "intrinsicists," as they put it. They're "evaders" and "second-handers" and "social metaphysicians," to use their evil cult-lingo. The good news, however, is that these pseudo-Objectivists are slowly falling in number and intensity.
Courtesy largely of Sense of Life Objectivists, Rebirth of Reason, and The Objectivist Center, the old-style moralizing, psychologizing, emotional repressing, and intellectual bullying is somewhat fading. Inside the Objectivist movement there's less intimidation and malicious abuse of "followers." Inside the Objectivist community there's fewer deferrals to Ayn Rand's authority and fewer demands to take her views on faith. The Objectivist universe -- even as we speak -- is ever-so-slowly cleaning and lifting itself up. [from November 29th, 2005]
1. Thou shalt work and try hard -- especially mentally.
2. Thou shalt work well and efficiently -- especially mentally.
3. Thou shalt not lie to, delude, or brainwash thy sacred Self.
4. Thou shalt not hide from nor ignore either the truth or thy sacred Self.
5.Thou shalt have tons of fun -- always.
6. Thou shalt not commit crimes: neither stealing others' property, nor injuring others physically, nor hurting kids mentally.
7. Thou shalt not defend, support, or appease government tyranny or slavery; rather, thou shalt subvert and undermine it continuously and ruthlessly.
8.Thou shalt not lie to others -- even strangers.
9. Thou shalt generally be empathetic, supportive, and loyal to others -- especially those of high virtue, lovers, friends, relatives, kids, and pets.
10. Thou shalt generally make everyone else have tons of fun -- especially those of high virtue, lovers, friends, relatives, kids, and pets. [from November 15th, 2005]
American President Ronald Reagan once called the Soviet Union an "Empire of Evil." The realm of Islam is that today. President Reagan also called the Soviet Union "the focus of evil in the modern world." Islam is that today.
Yesterday's horrific communist world revolutionaries have been largely displaced on the international scene by today's Islamo-fascists and Jihadis. The old "red menace" has become the "green menace." Both flagitious illiberalisms -- socialism and Islam -- are overwhelmingly irrational in philosophy, self-sacrificial in ethics, and tyrannical in politics. Both feature a tedious esthetics and an empty spirituality. Still, the flavor and style of the new evil is somewhat different.
Unfortunately for all, nothing like Ronald Reagan can be found in Britain's current leader Tony Blair or America's current leader George Bush. They both say Islam is a "great" religion of "peace" which has been "hijacked" by a tiny number of deviants. This apologia for the enemy constitutes an immense moral sanction and is utterly the language of appeasement and surrender. It portends a type of Western suicide.
Faced by the terrible evil of communism a generation ago, the West -- led by America -- fought and defeated the red menace, and won the Cold War. Faced by the terrible evil of Islam this generation, the West -- led by America -- needs to fight and defeat the green menace, and win the Jihadi War. [from November 9th, 2005]
Our 21st century world -- like all predominantly irrational, illiberal cultures and societies -- is very much a world of menace, violence, assault, and murder. So why should anyone ever challenge it, say, with radical new political or philosophical theories? The price of dissent and heresy against popular beliefs is almost always quite high. Indeed, it's often alacritous death, if not torture before.
So why should anyone suffer the personal anguish and futile exasperation of arguing with the conservative and reactionary powers-that-be when almost by definition these people are mindless drones and obnoxious insects? These dullards and bastards are of no objective or long-term value to the world, but are a very real short-term threat to one's prosperity and life. And at all cost one should avoid becoming a pointless victim and martyr.
Almost certainly the dissideratum -- the proper procedure and strategy -- is to keep the discussion about one's radical changes and would-be improvements to current ideas very vague, general, and abstract. If possible, one should seek to quietly and indirectly foment an intellectual revolution without anyone actually noticing.
Of course -- one doesn't want to be a complete coward, liar, low-life, and traitor to oneself.
Still, the general goal is to fly under their inevitably mediocre, if pervasive, radar. One must only champion truth and goodness to the extent the concommitant socio-economic penalty and physical menace is mostly minor, manageable, evadable, and defeatable. The intellectual revolutionary should try to never overly come to his ultra-powerful enemy's attention or within their dreadful gun sights.
The natural result of this strategy is one's innovations in politics, philosophy, culture, etc. will likely have less, or even much less, impact during one's lifetime, and that is a pain and a loss. But despite being an "extremist," "rabble-rouser," and general "trouble-maker" the creative, dynamic thinker will then maintain his flourishing and existence, and that is a great pleasure and gain. [from October 13th, 2005]
Nothing is more certain than that a whole shelf of major books will soon be written about the upcoming government fiasco in response to Hurricane Katrina. Big Brother is really going to hurt us on this one. The soon-to-be socialist disaster will dwarf the economic and social damage done by the storm itself. And the current sad, sorry, dismal world of libertarianism and Objectivism is utterly impotent to stop it.
The correct solution to the current problem is private charity and private initiative. Freedom, capitalism, and getting Uncle Sam out of the way is the key. But the significantly illiberal, failed, and intellectually bankrupt universe of libertarianism and Objectivism practically doesn't have Clue One how to advocate or advance this. So the horrific storm surge of Big Brother is about to swamp us all. [from September 17th, 2005]
Four years before he wrote The Communist Manifesto Karl Marx observed that "Religion is the opium of the masses." This is literally true in that opium is both an analgesic (deadener of pain) and a hallucinogenic (generator of illusions). The hoi polloi seem to need both.
The main purpose of religion -- its genesis and fundamental essence -- is to comfort mankind in the face of death. Accurate, rational knowledge of human mortality is evidently so painful to the man in the street -- and a few others -- that he willingly, eagerly turns to "god" as his permanent vehicle for anesthesia and delusion.
From the beginning, monotheism has been a massive and formidable phenomenon in human affairs. Such is the power of this mental and psycho-spiritual stupifier that even slavery becomes bearable with it. In Marx's time, a black slave who had "got religion" was far more passive and docile than his more rational and virtuous counterpart. The evil narcotic of theism made him lose his pride, will, and soul -- and thus no longer seek very much to escape servitude.
The morphine-like tranquilizer and intoxicant which is "god" is, of course, entirely false and evil. But pretty much every mass-man embraces it. Even among men of quality, few are brave, honest, virtuous, dynamic, and heroic enough to reject religion completely. But monotheism is a terrible poison which enslaves worse than any drug, and which destroys the soul of all. Religion and "god" are pure evil, and at some point the masses need to be made aware of this.
Of course...socialism is the opium of the intellectuals. It deadens the pain of their failure to create a socio-political utopia by deluding them about a false ideal based on collective tyranny which hasn't worked since Sparta. [from September 8th, 2005]
The whole complex, subtle, tricky world of Cold War espionage and subterfuge was fascinating. Pretty much everyone involved in it was a cynic, bastard, and traitor -- but also an idealist. The philosophic confusion and ambiguity was immense. And the moral grayness never ended.
The pro-Western spies -- those variegated "moles," "operatives," and "assets" -- were generally somewhat high-minded and noble, and believed in freedom. But they were also almost uniformly highly amoral, unprincipled, pragmatic, and realpolitiky in the notorious manner of Prince von Metternich and Henry Kissinger. These Western freedom fighters and Cold Warriors sleazily and self-destructively pursued "the greater good," and thought that "the ends justify the means." Their "power politics" and "balance of terror" games, schemes, scams, and shams were legendary.
The pro-Eastern spies were generally much more honest and idealistic. Their courage, devotion, and integrity was often breath-taking. But they were also quite cynical, and frequently very personally corrupt, debauched, and debased. They believed that world tyranny was inevitable, the destiny of mankind, the way of the world -- and probably for our own damn good, and all for the best.
So in this spy-counterspy universe: Who is truly good, admirable, and heroic? Who is even respectable or tolerable?
The West almost always betrayed its friends -- in order to "fight communism." This phenomenon was heart-rending and beyond horrific. The victim could be a freedom-loving man or country in the West. It could be a brave turncoat behind now-enemy lines. It could be a secretly friendly autocrat in the East. But sooner or later, one way or the other, the West pretty much always betrayed them. The classic example here is the all damage done by "the Cambridge Four" led by Kim Philby -- all those terrible Trinity traitors born with the silver spoons in their mouths.
In the end, the only people who really believed in Western-style semi-freedom were the dissidents and refuseniks of the East. And the only true and honest communists -- the only ones who weren't playing a slimy, cynical game for personal power and wealth -- were the disaffected idealists and ferocious revolutionaries of the West. (How ironic that the pro-commie, back-stabbing Westerners usually had too much money, not too little; too much education, not too little!)
In the murky, machinistic world of covert observation of the enemy and counter-intelligence (nice term!), almost nothing was as it seemed or should be. Only Westerners loved the ideals, and harbored sincere, fervent hopes, of Eastern ideology. Only Easterners loved the ideals, and harbored sincere, fervent hopes, of Western ideology.
But in the Game of Life you have to choose sides. And you have to act on it. This is true no matter how ignorant you are and no matter how unappealing the alternatives.
In the words of the movie Rebel Without a Cause: "you gotta do something" no matter how foolish. In the words of the cartoonist R.Crumb: you gotta "keep on truckin'" no matter how hopeless. [from August 19th, 2005]
Natural Law is the law of the world. It supercedes and voids any and all imperfect and tyrannical man-made laws. The United States' Constitution is not, as it claims, "the law of the land." Rather, a pure law of absolute justice, which is founded upon equal and complete freedom for all, is the true governing law of America and every other country.
Human-created or "positive" law rests upon, and derives all its legitimate authority from, Natural Law. Any applied or terrestial law which violates real law or Natural Law is necessarily tyrannical, criminal, illegitimate, and non-authoritative.
Natural Law is law in accordance with social physical morality. It's ineluctably based upon the laws of Mother Nature and human nature. As Cicero observed two thousand years ago: "True law is right reason in agreement with Nature." It is proper and accurate rational thought applied to political science and group governance.
Natural Law demands and commands that any given state or polity focus entirely on individual rights and complete utter individual liberty. The entire orientation of any moral government must be that of personal freedom. The result of this will be political perfection and universal liberty. An unalloyed and successful focus on Natural Law results in a libertarian paradise which is founded upon, as Cicero put it, "an eternal and unchangeable law which is valid for all nations and all times." [from August 4th, 2005]
Neurotics, psychotics, sociopaths, and various other lunatics are all people who have a mental and psychological disease. But most mental cases aren't basket cases. They simply lack something in the way of purpose, focus, direction, drive, ambition, energy, and excitement.
To a minor but still significant extent these are people with brain disease or a chemical imbalance. If properly diagnosed by a competent psychiatrist, these guys can usually be cured with drugs. But it's important that the schizos and other folks with nervous conditions stay on their meds -- usually for life. Otherwise they'll wack out on us and have another nervous breakdown.
Ocassionally, surgery to the thyroid, pituitary, hypothalmus, or some such can permanently cure the problem. But nowadays rarely are mental defects directly, clearly, cleanly traceable to gross, obvious, physical defects.
To an extent, all these ments lack self-discipline, honesty, and courage in facing their problems and confronting their inner demons. Moral uplift and character improvement would help considerably.
To a great extent, however, society has fucked these poor people up with its cruel, evil, irrational, illiberal philosophy, psychology, and spirituality. Their parents, teachers, preachers, leaders, and heroes have created a morally depraved civilization with a social atmosphere and personal ethos which has infected and corrupted them. Today's society has taken these healthy innocents and hideously debauched, degraded, ravaged, and savaged them both intellectually and psycho-spiritually.
In the end, it almost always helps for these people to gain a deep, detailed knowledge of their condition and its etiology. They need to learn how the world fucked them over in childhood. And how and why it still does. Knowledge combined with virtue is the key to mental and psychological healing and health. [from July 7th, 2005]
What is evil? Personal evil is making yourself unhappy. This is paramount. Social evil is making others unhappy. This is important too.
Personal evil is "being thy brother's keeper" or "loving thy neighbor as thyself" or "loving a stranger ahead of thyself." All this is extreme personal perversion and corruption. This is personal betrayal and treason. This is suicide, self-vivisection, and medieval torture on yourself.
Personal evil is also refusing to think, work, or try -- refusing to achieve, accomplish something, or make something of yourself and your life.
Personal evil is abasing, lowering, and reducing yourself to parasitism and predation by stealing for a living -- by not creating, accomplishing, and achieving for a living.
Personal evil is lying to yourself -- the easiest and worst lies of all. This is refusing to face facts and acknowledge reality -- to denying and evading the truth.
Personal evil is also "selling out" or "selling your soul." This is compromising your principles and abandoning your ideals for fame, fortune, power, or prestige.
Social evil -- on the other hand -- is stealing or criminality, or social parasitism and predation.
Social evil is lying to others -- especially friends and allies.
Social evil is backstabbing your friends and allies, or supporting crime and tyranny.
In the end, personal morality is much more important and much more difficult than social morality. But you shouldn't make yourself or others unhappy. You shouldn't be personally or socially evil. [from June 10th, 2005]
Before America conquered Afghanistan and Iraq, everyone said America would "win the war but lose the peace." Everyone was right.
American incompetence in "nation-building" and "teaching democracy" was and is legendary. A child could do better. Well, a pro-freedom liberal child. There is very little in southwest Asia today that looks like "Jeffersonian democracy."
Bozo America undermines and undercuts herself brutally in Afghanistan and Iraq by at least the following:
If the goal of the United States' government is to "export freedom" -- and it is -- it couldn't do much worse if it tried. [from April 15th, 2005]
A lot of the failure of the proto-liberals -- of the not-quite-right, not-quite-rational libertarians and Objectivists -- can be seen in their response to neo-conservatism. There virtually hasn't been one. Yet neo-conservatism is the dominant and defining ideology of the past generation.
Ever since Francis Fukuyama's essay 'The End of History?' and the fall of communism in Eastern Europe -- both in 1989 -- the ideology of the West has been fairly consistent. Ever since Samuel Huntington's book 'The Clash of Civilizations' and Bill Clinton's statement "The era of Big Government is over," -- both in 1996 -- the ideology of the West has been fairly clear. That philosophy, belief-system, and foreign policy is neo-conservatism.
Yet virtually no-one from the intellectually and morally impoverished Objectivist world of ARI, TOC, or SOLO has anything important to say about it. Virtually no-one from the intellectually and morally impoverished libertarian world of the LP and Cato has anything serious to say about it. Even in the post-9/11 era when foreign policy is so important and neo-conservatism is so influential -- the proto-liberals are essentially silent.
To the extent that these illiberal ideological failures and irrelevancies have anything to say at all, they basically regurgitate the thoughts of the isolationists Ayn Rand and the American Founding Fathers. They also echo the anachronistic, tiresome, anti-social views of the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia.
But this proto-liberal foreign policy of "Fuck thy neighbor" is hardly noble, proper, or wise. Ignoring terrible evil which is right in your neighborhood is far from decent or humane. For the West to see an indescribably horrific dictatorship like North Korea and then do nothing is the height of social immorality. And almost everyone knows it except the proto-liberals.
Ultimately, America was right to intervene in Iraq. And it needs to forcibly do so in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Sudan, among others. America needs to adopt a foreign policy based on some version of human solidarity and the Brotherhood of Man, and then liberate the Burmas and Cubas of the world. However poor the current version of Western liberalism is, and however dreadful the Americans have been historically in "nation-building" and "teaching democracy," this is undeniably the right thing to do.
Too bad the scumbag moron libertarians and Objectivists can't figure this out. [from March 20th, 2005]
For the most part, today's Objectivists are fundamentally docile servile followers of a sad, sick, bizarre kind of pseudo-rational cult. They are not happy, healthy, vibrant, dynamic, heroic adherents of a rational philosophical school. Unlike normal people of independent thought and strong reason, Objectivists are far from free-thinking, open-minded, and high-spirited. They can't accurately be described as rationally confident and serene, and there's little joyous and uplifted about them.
The overwhelming majority of Objectivists -- historically and even currently -- are grim, overserious, humorless cultists who are emotionally and sexually suppressed and repressed. Divorced from most drives and instincts, they're also essentially braindead, emotionless, emasculated conformists, without imagination or spirit. ("Evaders" and "second-handers" and "social metaphysicians," to use their evil cult-lingo.)
Today's Objectivists are generally (social) collectivists and (intellectual) authoritarians who take things far too much on faith. They quote Ayn Rand and her robotic Randroid epigones like their words are Writ, Scripture, the Law, and the Bible. They do not refer or adhere to Randian thought like it's the product of philosophical inquiry, rational discourse, or scholarly analysis.
These people are subhuman androids and cyborgs who are essentially indistinguishable from followers of Lyndon LaRouche or L. Ron Hubbard. These would-be Talibanis are alienated from their own self and life and context, as well as their true thoughts and true feelings, as well as hormones and impulses, psychology and spirituality, wants and needs. They have little contact with, and knowledge of, their own private sacred reality and truth.
Overall, these asshole "students of Objectivism" are silly, stupid, rediculous, and embarrassing in their attitudes and behavior. As people, these pitiful jerks are sad, sick, bizarre, and evil.
If most of the followers of a given belief-system are so unhealhy and unhappy --such sickpuppy jackasses of unreason, perversion, and pain -- that has to tell you something about the belief-system itself! [from February 9th, 2005]
Ayn Rand was fundamentally a killjoy. Or at least she was in the post-1959 period, when she switched from novelist to philosopher. There was very little light, free, fun-filled pleasure-seeking in her life, thank you very much! She preferred to formally lecture and grimly intellectualize in a way largely meant to punish the world.
And in the end, she spent way too much time condemning society, and not nearly enough making herself happy. The first is easy, the last quite hard. After 'Atlas Shrugged' she mainly occupied herself with saying "I told you so," rather than writing good novels. Or even good philosophy.
During the Objectivist Movement of the 1960s, Rand got a great deal of evil pleasure out of verbally lashing her loyalists and acolytes -- out of condemning and exploiting people who genuinely-but-foolishly viewed her as a liberator. Unfortunately for all, her argument and persona was strong enough -- and her charisma strong and seductive enough -- to successfully pose as their friend and ally.
Ayn Rand sucked the life, energy, and joy out of pretty much every single one of her followers in that era. The same for their independent rationality. This philosophic vampire knew how to inappropriately, wantonly, viciously psychologize and moralize all day long. And she often did. As an evil cult leader, she quietly relished abusing her weak and niave followers.
In particular, Rand's caricature of, and disinformation about, the rival egoistic philosophy and ethic of hedonism constitutes a massive intellectual fraud. Her cowardice and dishonesty here is considerable. So too her intellectual and moral bankruptcy.
Ultimately, no-one can understand Rand's philosophical position regarding hedonism without looking at it from a psychological perspective. Hedonists make for very poor cult followers. And Rand knew it -- consciously or unconsciously. Hedonists, Epicureans, Cyrenaics, and most Eudaemonists, etc. are simply too high-minded, open-minded, free-thinking, light-hearted, high-spirited, dynamic, and heroic. And Rand wasn't having any of that! Neither was her Collective. Neither is the evil cult Ayn Rand Institute today. [from January 23rd, 2005]
Common sense is highly reliable and the natural, normal, conventional, standard human thinking process is extremely trustworthy and powerful. Properly-applied rationality and science are flawless.
There are no Platonic "forms" or "ideas," nor any Kantian "things-in-themselves," "noumena," "antimonies," or "analytic truths," nor any "a priori" knowledge or truths.
All knowledge and truths and certainties about reality come to humans via the senses which usually generate coherent unified perceptions which are usually organized into categories or concepts (or "universals") by the rational thinking process i.e. by the information-gathering, problem-solving human brain.
The basis of all knowledge is axioms or self-evident truths or self-proving propositions or tautologies. There seem to be only three of these:
All these truths are certain, undeniable, and unneeding of proof.
Still, all three can be utterly inferred and concluded via infinite induction as well. All these axioms are demonstrably true for, say, 42, pomgranate, university, art, beauty, etc. From this we can also deduce the law of Truth: "the truth is true" as found in the subject of Epistemology.
Objectivists say "Existence exists" and "Humans are conscious" which they claim are axioms. But these seem to be of a lower order or "less certain" as Aristotle would say. We might all be living inside of Keanu Reeves' Matrix which would make these two slightly problematic -- unlike the first three. Objectivists also forget that "We are alive" which goes in between. These four semi-axioms rest upon and are derivative of the first three full axioms. [from December 23rd, 2004]
There's no proof that god exists. There's not even a single piece of evidence in its favor -- no signs given, no prayers answered, no futures predicted, no miracles performed. There's no reason whatsoever to believe in god. Belief in god is, literally and metaphorically, irrational nonsense.
The five human senses, all scientific sensing devices, human reason and logic, computer reason and logic, and all internal consistency among and between them indicate that no form of supernaturalism or ultrarealism exists. All conceivable evidence and knowable truth emphatically and unambigously agrees: There's no such thing as supersensitive, superrational, supernatural, superreal phenomena or entities. Still less, omnipotent or godly ones. Still less, ones which created humanity, currently guide humanity, and will eventually sit in judgment of humanity on our Doomsday.
Sorry, folks! There's no fucking god. [from December 12th, 2004]
Buddhists forever talk of the importance and virtue of compassion -- of sympathy and empathy for the fate and suffering of one's fellow man and for all intelligent living creatures. Even the world's newest movement and philosophy -- the Fulan Gong/Dafa of China -- puts the human ideal of "compassion" above that of "wisdom."
At some point, this is all good. All humans struggle desperately to grasp reality, comprehend life and the Self, minimize pain, and escape death. And all largely fail. So there really is a great commonality and brotherhood of man on this issue, and everyone should respect this.
Still, our major job vis-a-vis our coevals is not to "feel bad for him" or "put ourself in his shoes and see things from his perspective." In the first place, a lot of this is none of our business. In the second, there's a limit to how much your heart can break for another -- even if you know him deeply and love him dearly. And there's an even stricter limit on how much you can mentally place your unique Self inside of his private and also very special Self.
When dealing with others, our principal cosmic duty and social moral obligation is to not tyrannize or commit crimes against them (i.e. don't employ aggressive force or financial fraud). Our secondary, but still very important, duty is to not lie to or verbally/spiritually defraud them. These two obligations alone are quite difficult -- especially in today's post-Enlightenment welfare statist, crime-ridden, lieing, cheating world.
Beyond all this, we should only really help our fellow man briefly and to a limited extent during unexpected emergencies such as saving him form gross physical danger or extreme financial deprivation. Or perhaps from terrible and illegal assault by his leaders or fellows.
Beyond this what one should do to and with one's fellow human beings (and pets, etc.) is simply share good times and feelings in some truly friendly fashion. But even here the main purpose of "sharing benevolence," "offering generosity," "spreading the spiritual wealth," etc. is to enhance the happiness of the Self -- not one's fellow man.
Friends should indeed be relatively supportive, loyal, and, well, friendly. Even strangers should be somewhat like this to their random, unknown, fellow man. But all this empathy, sympathy, compassion stuff is limited. It's still a somewhat small social virtue and value by and of itself, and is only of somewhat marginal benefit to one's fellows.
It's far better for the Buddhists, Fulan Gongers, and all others to much more focus on being a non-criminal and non-supporter of tyranny. After this, they should try hard not to lie so much, and mentally/spiritually defraud their fellow man so much. Without this, all their crocodile tears of compassion are close to worthless -- or worse. [from November 25th, 2004]
Ayn Rand called Immanuel Kant the most evil person in all of human history. As usual, she was right. Kant was the intellectual father of pure cultural illiberalism, pure philosophical unreason, and pure personal and social destruction.
Kant builds magnificently upon the raw irrationality and depravity of Bishop Berkeley (early 1700s) and David Hume (mid 1700s) while leaving Friedrich Hegel (early 1800s) virtually nothing left to lie about or destroy. Kant (late 1700s) was the kung fu master of empty talk, double talk, and false talk. So too of general nihilism, intellectual skepticism, subjectivism, relativism, and today's deconstructivism. Kant even contributes to Objectivism's tendency toward scholasticism, rationalism, and "intrinsicism."
No-one writes in a more incompetent, incomprehensible, anfractuous, serpentine, stultifying, stupifying, tortured, tedious, baffling, baroque, ennui-inspiring way. His impure thoughts lead to his impure words which lead to impure deeds done by and to everybody.
In his limitless and undying hatred of mankind, Kant once said: "Never a straight thing was made from the crooked timber of man." But the fact is: "Never a straight thing was written by the crooked pen of Kant."
It's hard to imagine a more false and corrupt title than his tour de force first book: The Critique of Pure Reason. And nothing in the whole written universe is more unreadable and presumptuously outrageous than his 500-page (!) Introduction -- his ultra-pretentious "prolegomenon" -- to that Pure Reason abortion.
Nothing is, or ever can be, more false and evil -- or more non-existent and yet destructive -- than his absurd "noumena" and "things-in-themselves." This "a priori" rot is unprecedented and unequaled. This pure nonsense (literally) and utter bullshit (esthetically) inevitably leads to the (mental) destruction of all real phenomena and the people who depend upon it (i.e. all of us). This nihilism taken to a height and state of perfection ultimately leads -- via Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Khomenei, Osama, etc. -- to utter annihilism.
His best buddy Moses Mendelssohn had it right: this malicious clown really is "the smasher of everything." All of reality dies and obtains non-existence in his theories -- and all people soon thereafter in the realization of his theories.
What can be more omni-destructive morally than his Categorical Imperative? Written in his trademark tortured, garbled snytax this ethical "ideal" is as self-repudiating, self-destructive, and universally annihilating as a thing can be.
If Plato and Aristotle are the two great archetypes of human philosophy -- the Goofus and Gallant of intellectual endeavor and the life of the mind -- then Kant brings alive the pure falsity and evil of Platonic "forms" and "idealism" like never before or since. [from November 21st, 2004]
Ultimately, Ayn Rand saw herself as "the last altruist to end all altruism." But her idea and goal here was hopeless, rediculous, self-contradictory nonsense and -- as was inevitable -- didn't near work. But give this animal-sacrifice philosopher some credit: she sermonized, lectured, hectored, pontificated, bloviated, pychologized, moralized, and viciously hatefully bullied to the very end of her days. So at least she made a valliant effort.
But as a result of her actions and attitude, the philosophy of Objectivism, as it's practiced today, is fundamentally altruistic. It's all about societal improvement and social conversion, not self-improvement and personal liberation. It's all about convincing others of the "Truth" of the ideology, not enhancing the self while using the truth of the ideology.
But conquering the world is easy and trivial. Making the Holy Individual happy is hard and ultra-important.
Unfortunately for all of us, Objectivism nowadays doesn't much tell you how to think clearly, feel deeply, and enjoy life utterly -- so what good is it? Objectivism doesn't much tell you how to dominate important people, score great drugs, win supermodel girlfriends, or earn tens of millions of dollars -- so what good is it? Objectivism doesn't much tell you how to find profound meaning and clear purpose in your life -- so what good is it? Objectivism doesn't much tell you how to live a life which is transcendent and sublime -- a life of spiritual health, wealth, wisdom, and nobility. So what good is it? The supposedly great philosophy of Objectivism almost entirely refuses to tell you how to live a life which is vivacious, thrilling, rich, deep, exalting, dynamic, and heroic. So what the holy hell good is it?
What Objectivism does excel at is whining about the government, voting conservative/Republican, and refusing to create an alternative political party. What Objectivism does excel at is criticizing and casting out open minds, free spirits, and uplifted souls in banal, tiresome, loser CULT fashion while pitifully claiming "breaches of morality" and intellectual dishonesty on the part of all its rival non-zombie thinkers.
But this last is something the altruistic, miserable, lonely, alienated, cowardly, slimey, dishonest, irrational, wantonly illiberal Objectivists are usually guilty of. [from November 15th, 2004]
The ultimate Samuel Huntingtonesque "clash of civilizations" isn't between today's highly illiberal West and today's highly illiberal Islamdom. After all, both coincide and agree on everything important: a philosophy of religion, an ethics of self-sacrifice, and a polity of welfare statism. Their beliefs and ideals almost entirerly cohere. Both societies and "civilizations" are intensely irrational and culturally identical in their fundamentals.
The real battle today is between the skepticist-based West of Pythagorus and Plato and the certaintyist-based West of Aristotle and Epicurus. It's highly revealing that in the 200s BC, when cultural liberalism was at its zenith, virtually everyone who was smart and well-educated referred to the Reasonist Aristotleian philosophies of Epicurus and Zeno (the Stoic) as "dogmatic." They were so-described not because these belief-systems and life-styles claimed to know everything based, more-or-less, on faith, but because they claimed to know anything at all -- even the truth of the laws of identity and equality -- based on rationality. Our Western liberal world was in profound and overwhelming trouble even then(!).
When you consider it carefully, the current culture-clash and battle royale between the West and Islam is surprisingly insipid and close to meaningless. Only when the West has triumphed here will the real fight begin. The true enemies of sane, sober, normal, civilized, happyness-seeking, greatness-seeking people today are the Enlightenment and Age of Reason destroyers known as Berkeley, Hume, and Kant. That and their two leading-edge, direct-action, ultra-demon, annihilationist off-shoots: Moses and Jesus. Even "moderate" skepticist-based jews and christians today are fully capable of besting the worst islamic 9/11ist maniacs on practically any day of the week. [from November 10th, 2004]
In 1973 the great liberal theorist Frederic Hayek wrote: "The liberal conception of freedom has often been described as a merely negative conception, and rightly so. Like peace and justice, it refers to the absence of an evil...The liberal demand for freedom is thus a demand for the removal of all manmade obstacles to individual efforts...The decline of liberal doctrine, beginning in the 1870s, is closely connected with a re-interpretation of freedom as the command over, and usually the provision by the state of, the means of achieving a great variety of particular ends." In this last, Hayek was referring to the Marxist-led perversion of the term liberalism from its original and truer meaning of "freedom and capitalism" to its current and debauched meaning of "soft tyranny and welfare statism."
There are many ways to look at this devolution of ideology and terminology. Here are some:
In Fyodor Dostoevski's 'The Brothers Karamazov' Ivan Karamazov observes "Without God, everything is permited." Every deep thinker from Nietzsche on down seems to agree. But the truth is "Without god, only humanity is permitted." People must behave. They aren't allowed to waste their existence or perpetrate atrocities. Their implied, implicit, universal, ineluctable, grand Personal Contract and Social Contract forbid them from renouncing their humanity and converting to monsterdom. There is no god in existence to forgive Hitler, Stalin, Saddam, Osama, etc. and allow them to get into heaven anyway, provided they sincerely humbly "believe," "confess," "ask forgiveness" or some such.
All people who believe in god are evil. The level of their evil is equal to the level of their true, honest, sincere belief. They all believe they're allowed to repudiate their humanity and thence utterly abuse their individual existence and massively slaughter their fellow man. But they aren't. Their human nature and quintessence forbids this behavior. It is not "permitted" in the Dostoevskian sense because no god exists to redeem their subhuman, self-destructive, social-destructive behavior.
In many ways, people are right to note the difference between radical and moderate religious believers. It's important to understand that the somewhat hypocritical "not overly religious" type folks are better than the fundamentalist types. Or that christians are better than moslems, protestants are better than catholics, unitarians are better than protestants, etc.
In many ways, distinguishing between different types of religious beliefs and practices is helpful and important. But in most ways it isn't. At bottom, all people who believe in god are inhuman, subhuman, humanity-destroying, society-destroying, self-destroying vermin. They are a menace to, and annihilater of, themself and their fellow man. [from September 25th, 2004]
First was the 1967 Israeli war in which five massive moslem armies were crushed by a country of jewish sissies only 1/50th their size. Arab and moslem humiliation here was tremendous -- and still hurts badly.
Second was the general worldwide Second Socialist Wave [the first being the 1930s "New Deal"], especially as manifested in supposedly-civilized America and Western Europe. This "hippie generation," "Civil Rights era," "Great Society" movement saw a massive expansion of government power and authority -- and concommitant decline in individual liberty and collective justice.
So the philosophy of islam was energized and converted into fundamentalist islam while the politics of the welfare state was energized and converted into semi-socialism. These two dominating evil ideologies -- newly radicalized by the '60s -- then combined in the Middle East and elsewhere to create something truly volatile, combustible and horrific.
One result was 9/11. Another likely result is an upcoming nuclear conflagration in New York, Los Angeles or London.
But why are moslems so evil in general, and so suseptible to socialism and terrorism in particular? Because unlike judaism and christianity, which were products of the relatively-civilized Helleno-Roman era, their religion was created in the Dark Ages. And unlike judaism and christianity, islam never had a Reformation in response to a Hellenized European Renaissance and Enlightenment. And unlike jews and christians in the West, almost all moslems live in dictatorships.
This makes the followers of Mohammed three levels of civilization worse. This makes them, as a people, three orders of magnitude more evil. This makes them rather love terrorism. This also makes them an atomic threat to the planet -- and worthy of great hatred. [from September 20th, 2004]
The dominant philosophy (sic) of the world is christianity. Christ-inanity was initially known as -- and sometimes still is known as -- "Plato for the masses." The intellectuals chose this name well.
There is a straight-line progression from Pythagoras to the sophists to Plato to the neo-platonist Pyrrho -- and then to "god." This unholy SKEPTICISM defeated Aristotle, rationality, and all the various Reasonists. By the 200s BC or so, the highly-Aristotelean, intensely-rational philosophies of Epicureanism and Stoicism were actually labelled "dogmatism" by serious thinkers and intellectuals. This was because the promoters of reason actually claimed to know something whereas the wiser (sic) neo-platonists and early religionists claimed to know nothing. (And on this last, folks, we can trust them.)
This flagitious skepticism about all philosophy, knowledge, and certainty -- about truth per se -- soon led to subjectivism and relativism, thence to pure nihilism and pure religion. Plato, "the philosopher of imagination," the philosopher of evil false bullshit, defeated Aristotle and company. No "Aristoteleanism for the masses" ever emerged. And now it's too late.
Now is the time for "Randianism for the masses." Or some such book like "Objectivism for Dummies." But no such presentation or book currently exists or is even planned for the distant future. Neither ARI nor TOC nor SOLO -- despite their never-ending pitiful propagandization of the hoi polloi -- has a clue that such a work is needed. Nor do they have any ability to create one.
Ultimately, this job will fall to the liberals -- as will every other damn job of even moderate import. Ah, well. Those foolish, farcical, feckless, fatuous, fucked-up Objectivists would have gotten it wrong anyway. [from September 15th, 2004]
In many ways, the history of the world over the past 100 years is the history of oil. It's easily the world's most valuable commodity and, one way or the other, plays a prominent role in virtually every war. The post-Industrial Revolution West runs on oil.
What a disaster, then, when Iran "nationalized" British oil in 1951 and the only response was an impotent British naval blockade coupled with weak support from America and the West. Over the next two decades Britain, France, and America lost virtually all of their legitimately-acquired, rightly-owned -- and ultra-precious oil property. It was seized by powerless "thugs on camels" and non-descript middle-eastern criminals, primitives, and savages.
This was the biggest theft in the history of man, and has provided trillions; to support and advance raw evil and stunning cultural illiberalism. And via the crucial Western oil workers -- whom the Arabs openly mock as "our white slaves" -- the Western states continue to fund tyranny, terror, and horror to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars a year.
But you wouldn't know it to listen to the libertarians and Objectivists. Very few seem to understand this and virtually none ever mention it. It is a perfectly shocking act of ignorance, dishonesty, and cowardice on their part. Even with the insurrection raging in Iraq -- and countless libertarian/Objectivist analyses of the situation pouring out (see today) -- essentially no-one mentions the root cause of all this evil.
The reasons for the libertarian and Objectivist depravity is obvious. They don't have the heart or the guts to advocate the proper solution to the problem: TAKE BACK OUR OIL. And the reason the L/Os are so intellectually dishonest and morally cowardly on this issue is, ultimately, they lack the philosophical wherewithal and ideological strength which is necessary -- and which is possessed in abundance by liberals.
Those libertarian/Objectivist weaklings and losers do the best they can do, probably. But the problem is -- that just isn't very good. [from September 11th, 2004]
Almost everyone in the proto-liberal movement talks about "the human spirit" and our "soul." But what is actually meant by this? The terms are ambiguous, foggy, and pie-in-the-sky amorphous. Libertarians and Objectivists who talk about it are almost nothing but suspicious. They seem like major con-men, like they don't know what they're talking about, and like they're trying to pull a real fast one on us.
Objectivists in particular seem very dishonest and untrustworthy here. If you don't immediately fall into their hazy, unspecified, ethereal line -- and swallow whatever la-de-da crap they're serving up -- they quickly fall on you, and offer up brutal condemnations for believing in a "malevolent universe" and lacking a "positive sense of life." This is the usual Objectivist bullshit. This is the Objectivist version of mysticism.
Ayn Rand once said that "That which you call your soul or spirit is your consciousness, and that which you call free will is your mind's freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom, the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and your character." This is helpful -- but it's too mechanical and simplistic. The above pretty well describes animal souls, but the human soul is more profound, subtle, and complex.
If any truly Reasonist and liberal thinker wants to take this stuff seriously -- and reclaim it from the dogmatic religiosos and sleazy Objectivists -- then the place to begin is with a good definition. The Ancient Romans coined the term "spiritus" (spirit) and the Old English speakers seemed to model their term "sawol" (soul) upon it.
It's worth noting here that these two terms were originally secular and not the creation of the fanatical and primitive Hebrews ("Jews"), nor the even more fanatical and savage Hebrew offshoots ("Christians"). Both terms have as their root meaning the idea "breath" in the sense of "source and essence of life."
Thus the human spirit and soul should probably be redefined today as "life at its truest and most essential" and/or "life at its best and most noble." In this sense, the human being with the finest spirit and soul would be he who has the best and most noble combination of nature, nurture, and self-creation. Any person who has a personal gestalt of physical and mental and psychological magnificence, combined with a well-developed character and personality, combined with high virtue and integrity, combined with a healthy happy upbringing and a full effective education -- such a person can truly be said to be good, great, and heroic. He can also be said to have a "great spirit" and "noble soul" -- something to which everyone can and should pedestrianly, groundedly, concretely, practically, realistically aspire to. [from September 8th, 2004]
Drug tyranny destroys the second greatest pleasure known to man -- and some would say it's the first.
Almost everyone nowadays says that drug enslavement is morally and practically good because it radically diminishes the number of chemical addictions and narcotics deaths in the general population. But statistics in the United States tell another story. 10 million people today consider themselves to be "alcoholics." 40 million consider themselves to be "addicted" to tobacco -- against their will and despite their strong preferences. Meanwhile, despite widespread and easy availability, the number of people chemically ensnared by "hard" drugs and "narcotics" is less than 1/10th.
Moreover, the death toll in this "war on drugs" is beyond appalling. In America, about 7,000 people die a year from heroin, morphine, cocaine, crack, codeine, methamphetamine, LSD, PCP, etc. But over 100,000 die from alcohol. And over 450,000 die from tobacco. These "soft" drugs murder almost a hundred times as many!
If drugs were de-tyrannized -- if rank slavery were removed from people's private drug lives -- it's fairly obvious that hard drug deaths would triple or quadruple at most. But soft drug deaths would be virtually wiped out!
Everyone knows that marijuana is much more fun to take than cigarettes and cigars. Everyone knows that cocaine is much more fun to take than beer and whiskey. Even cowardly, dishonest, worthless Objectivists understand this (altho' they're far too slimey to admit it aloud). The level of sweetness, pleasure and joy that these two drugs alone bring to people's humdrum, depressed lives is almost off the scale.
The shockingly irrational fanaticism which drives the welfare state's "war on drugs" -- and the stunningly evil "do-gooder" moral code which underlies it -- makes people absolutely miserable, and slaughters more Americans every year than a hundred 9/11s! [from September 6th, 2004]
Liberalism or "the culture of reason" began with the Greeks. They're the inventors and creators of philosophy and science. They're the primogenitors of Reason and the subsequent unique society and culture which flowed from it. The ancient Greeks were the first people who were orientated toward rationality and logic in their deep, serious thought; toward individualism and egoism in their ethics; toward individual autonomy and freedom in their politics. They're the Fathers of the best of Western liberal society today -- of our world cleansed of religion, socialism, and the religio-socialist ethic (altruism).
But you wouldn't know it to read today's encyclopedias. They all say liberalism essentially began with John Locke.
'The Encyclopedia Britannica' briefly admits that "Liberalism is the culmination of a development that goes back to the Hebrew prophets, the teachings of the pre-Socratics, and the Sermon on the Mount..." Now, it's nice that they give over one partial sentence (out of 300) to the liberal Helleno-Roman world -- before dismissing it entirely. But two of the three points (the religious ones) are flat wrong! And what about mentioning the main liberal thinkers back then: Socrates, Democritus, Aristotle, Epicurus and Zeno?
'The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy' minutely concedes that liberal culture "has theoretical roots in the writings of Cicero and Machiavelli." Then it moves on completely. But where are the classical Greeks?
'The Wikopedia Encyclopedia' obscurely avers that liberalism has "philosophical roots going back to the Renaissance traditions of empiricism, humanism and realism of Sir Francis Bacon, Erasmus and Niccolo Machiavelli, respectively." But how about Socrates and Aristotle?
All three encyclopedias feature 5000-word-plus articles in their entries for "liberalism," but they each only manage a single, half-ass, somewhat contradictory, mostly wrong sentence on the Hellenic roots of liberalism and the culture of reason. But such is the ignorance nowadays of even the best authorities on the subject of liberalism. [from September 3rd, 2004]
Altho' no libertarian or Objectivist currently understands this, "liberty," "justice," and "individual rights" -- when used to refer to government and the law -- are merely separate terms and approaches which refer to the exact same political idea: freedom. This definitive governmental standard, goal, and ideal should be pursued to infinity because it constitutes pure legal perfection.
But in a limited and mostly linguistic sense, sheer liberty and ultimate freedom aren't desirable -- or even possible. There's no such thing as a "right" to violate rights. There's no such thing as the "freedom" to trespass and erode the freedom of others. Any such belief or theory is contradictory nonsense and self-refuting gibberish.
Moreover, even the most holy and worthy individual isn't free to violate the fundamental laws of physics and metaphysics. Gravitation and causality are not to be toyed with! Okay, the individual has the right to do so -- but not the ability. Only very superior space aliens can do this -- and only if they're lucky! ;-)
None of this "unlimited freedom" stuff means that society can't and shouldn't exert fairly enormous influence, control, and "governance" over the individual. Altho' the Sacred Self is truly a thing to be worshiped -- something neither men nor gods should dare to touch -- the collective may indeed impact his life thru the vehicles of social ostracism and economic boycott. Such attacks, especially nowadays, are indeed powerful -- far more so than any lame, pitiful libertarian or Objectivist today admits or knows. [from August 31st, 2004]
372 years ago today John Locke was born. He is almost universally regarded as "the father of classical liberalism." And this is precisely what the planet needs much more of today.
It's well understood these days that what the recently-liberated, post-1989 countries of eastern Europe lack -- and badly need -- is much more cultural liberalism. This would increase the level of freedom in their governments and the level of civilization in their societies. It's also widely or even universally understood today that what the partially-enslaved and savage, post-9/11 countries of Islamdom lack -- and badly need -- is far more cultural liberalism. This would increase the level of freedom in their governments and the level of civilization in their societies. But what nobody seems to understand yet is that what the West lacks -- and badly needs -- is also much more cultural liberalism.
Just as all countries on earth nowadays are viscerally anti-American -- it's the world's unofficial ideology! -- so too all "Western liberal" nations are passionately anti-Western and emphatically illiberal. This massive tendency toward Western self-hatred and self-destruction is a massive problem. Life can be truly sad in today's naive, ignorant, fundamentally irrational, deeply illiberal Dark Age. But as John Locke once observed, the best "fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it." [from August 29th, 2004]