The New Clarion

In Podcast 71 Leonard Peikoff briefly discusses his upcoming book on the DIM Hypothesis. From the explanation of his lecture series on DIM:

Dr. Peikoff’s forthcoming book, The DIM Hypothesis, identifies three different modes of integration, i.e., of interrelating concretes, such as individual percepts, facts, choices, etc. As Dr. Peikoff explains: “My thesis is that the dominant trends in every key area can be defined by their leaders’ policy toward integration. They are against it (Disintegration, D); they are for it, if it conforms to reality (Integration, I); they are for it, if it conforms to a superior reality (Misintegration, M).” The book demonstrates the power of these three modes in shaping Western culture and history.

The book looks to be a bombshell. In his podcast Dr. Peikoff says it explains how religion is “the root of all evil from the beginning.”

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ARCTV has posted John Ridpath’s speech on Patrick Henry in honor of Independence Day. I recommend it highly. The speech is entertaining and, more important, it reminds us that the American Revolutionaries stood on the principle of individual liberty. There were timid souls back then, moderates, as there always are. It took a a man of integrity and oratorical genius to steel their resolve. Henry persuaded people that there could be no compromise, that war was the only proper course of action.

I could write a paean to America today. I could discuss the exceptional nature of the United States in a world fraught with tyranny and force or lament the unheeded wisdom of the Founding Fathers in this trying time. Those are the things that politicians around the country will be doing today, co-opting the occasion in the verbal equivalent of a flag lapel pin.

But I won’t. To me, the Fourth of July is like Valentine’s Day or New Year’s Day: a day when everyone celebrates something they should be doing year-round but aren’t. Reserving your energies and efforts to honor your values for a single day every year is actually a moral travesty. America is the greatest nation on earth and has been since its inception 233 years ago.

We here at The New Clarion love America. And we show that love (almost) daily when we chronicle and expose the distance we as a nation have strayed from where we ought to be. It is right and just to be patriotic for the United States and there’s no reason to limit it to just one day a year.

In the months before Farrah Fawcett died Amy Wallace had an email exchange with the actress about Fawcett’s communications with Ayn Rand. Fawcett’s emails show that she was most definitely not the airhead starlet she used to be considered.

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David Letterman has come under intense attack from the right over bad jokes he made about Governor Sarah Palin and her daughters. He mentioned Sarah Palin’s “slutty flight attendant look,” which made me laugh because it’s true. Then he made a joke about Alex Rodriguez knocking up Palin’s daughter. To me this is more a comment on Rodriguez’s philandering than on Palin’s daughter.

Letterman has apologized, more or less. He gave the old “misunderstanding” apology. I’m sorry you’re not smart enough to understand what I meant.

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A few weeks ago, conservative John Derbyshire posted a revealing item over at National Review Online.  It is revealing, in that it exposes one of the fundamental commonalities between conservatism and the Left, that sets them in opposition to Americanism: the idea that there are different (and contradictory) “kinds” of freedom.

Notice that Derbyshire characterizes these four “notions of liberty” originally described by David Hackett Fischer, as being “subtly different”.  Let us examine these differences, to see how “subtle” these differences are.

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Billy Beck writes,

We are now in the fait accompli of American socialist revolution. Most peoples’ ignorance of history doesn’t allow them to really grasp how rapidly this is happening now, but this wheel is turning like never before.

I have no illusions that I can change any of it, but I am beginning to see new inspiration — if we can call it that, but it’s more like desperation — toward better work on the blog.

I suspect a lot of bloggers on the individual rights/free market side have had similar thoughts. We are at an important moment in history. Speaking out seems more urgently needed, and yet one has moments of doubt and despair. Does blogging matter?

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Charles Johnson does a lot of good things at Little Green Footballs.  His anti-jihadist stance since 9/11 has been consistently good.  His criticism of creationism/Intelligent Design has been excellent.  And his criticism of making alliances with racist/fascist parties in the war against the jihadists has also been good.

But there are also serious flaws in his philosophy.  Seeing that Republicans have become too dominated by religion, his solution is for Republicans to become  ”moderates.”   He uses other anti-concepts like ”extremist” with reckless abandon.   And when Republicans begin to show interest in rational economic ideas, such as sound money and abolishing the Fed, Johnson chastises them for their interest in such “weird economic ideas.”   In other words, Johnson is an anti-capitalist.  He described himself as “center/left” before 9/11, so his anti-capitalist views are no surprise. 

I’m not suggesting LGF isn’t worth visiting, because it is.  I go there every day.  Just keep in mind his philosophical views when reading his more political posts.

I heard a few radio spots (also known as commercials) in my day job that make me despair for America.

The first was an ad for Home Depot, in which two women are shopping in a produce aisle. They are shocked by the price of spinach. But one of the women has a plan! She won’t let any supermarket foist expensive spinach on her! No, sirree — she’ll start a garden and grow her own spinach!

Are you kidding me?!

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This is just a note to direct your attention to PJTV, where Bill Whittle has a really excellent video piece about the use of atomic weapons on Japan during WWII, after comedian Jon Stewart opined that our use of them constituted a war crime.  (Hat Tip, LGF.)

This video clip of CNN reporter Susan Roesgen arguing with and lecturing to a protester at the Chicago Tea Party has been widely posted on a number of blogs. If you have not yet seen it, definitely take a moment to do so – this reporter, as well as anchor back in the studio at the final moments of the clip, are an excellent look at the mindset and attitude of the Walter Duranty media.

If CNN had an ounce of journalistic credibility left it would immediately terminate Susan Roesgen, give a warning to the anchor back in the studio and issue an apology both to the protesters in Chicago and to its audience. But I seriously doubt that will happen. My guess is Susan Roesgen accurately reflects the attitudes and views of her editors and CNN management.

Anyhow, my reason for posting the clip here is to make the following observation: Observe that what really sets Roesgen off is when the protester took offense at Obama quoting Lincoln on grounds that what Lincoln actually stood for was liberty.

Something I have noticed over the years is that, whenever I have had discussions with Leftists and brought up the authoritarian nature of their agenda and its totalitarian implications, they are often thrown into what Ayn Rand referred to as a “blank out” which she defined as “the willful suspension of one’s consciousness, the refusal to think — not blindness, but the refusal to see; not ignorance, but the refusal to know.”

Sometimes the “blank out” takes the form of the Leftist suddenly wanting to terminate the conversation, usually by tossing out a final insult and making a statement to the effect that one is “hopeless.” Sometimes it takes the form of desperately trying to change the subject. And sometimes it takes the form of a sudden outburst of hostility and rage. In the case of Susan Roesgen, we see all three.

I suspect that the reaction of hostility and rage is usually the result of the person not being able to successfully blank out fast enough thus allowing the offending fact of reality to actually get past their defenses and though to their consciousness. Hostility and rage is their way of attempting to forever bury that which they momentarily grasped. Those who are able to successfully blank out before the implications fully hit them are usually able to maintain self-control and simply change the subject or walk away.

Had the protester in the video been more explicit about Obama’s authoritarianism, had he carried a sign stating that Obama was a thug, it would probably have had little impact in terms of unnerving Roesgen. Such explicit statements would have been dismissed out of hand as proof that the protesters were right wing bumpkins and boobs from flyover country who drink the sort of coffee served in truck stops and gas stations and thus should not be taken seriously. The danger for people such as Roesgen is the workings of their own mind when the implications of what they are seeking to avoid knowing sneak past and sink in.

My guess is that, between some of premises displayed by the better posters which were evident in great number at these Tea Parties and the protester’s implicit suggestion that Obama is anti-liberty, for a brief fraction of a second, Roesgen’s mind was able to put two and two together and she understood exactly what the Tea Party was all about. That was the moment that set her off and her reaction to it was so intense that she completely dropped any pretense at journalistic professionalism. Even by twisted Walter Duranty media standards, it is unacceptable to “lose one’s cool” on camera.

Observe that Roesgen engaged in all of the three forms of blanking out that I described – she tried to change the subject (“What does this have to do with your taxes?”), she became hostile and, finally, she attempted to run away from the whole thing by ending the broadcast on the excuse that “since I cannot really hear much more and since I think this is not really family viewing, [I will] toss it back to you Karen.”

Ultimately, this is a good thing and Susan Roesgen has done the people she so desperately hates a huge favor. Displays such as this make it more and more difficult for decent, busy people who do not pay close attention to politics to realize that Leftist arrogance and Leftist media bias is more than a mere sore loser sort of Right wing accusation and that something is very wrong. Displays such as this only helps motivate those who do realize what is happening to become angry and speak up. Nasty people like her are the greatest recruitment tool the Tea Party movement has. Above all, displays such as this are a good example of why anybody who grasps at whatever level the connection between big government and tyranny should call a spade a spade as opposed to self-censoring one’s statements in order to conform to the unspoken requirements of being perceived as a “moderate.”

I joined thousands of other protesters yesterday at the “Tea Party” protest at City Hall Park in downtown New York. My sign read on one side, “Reason & Capitalism. No Creeping Socialism!” On the other, it read, “Ayn Rand Is Right.” I saw many signs referring to Atlas Shrugged and Ayn Rand. One Objectivist joined me with his sign that read, “Who Is John Galt?”

We found a strategic spot right alongside Broadway. Many busloads and carloads of commuters got to see “Ayn Rand Is Right” and “Who Is John Galt?” on their way home from work. One person asked us who John Galt was. We told him that if he wants to understand what is wrong with the world and what should be done about it, read Atlas Shrugged. He said he would.

I was pleased overall by the event. It was remarkably secular. There were few references to God and the conservative Republicans only showed themselves in a tentative manner. (I think they know how responsible the Bush-era Big Government and Religious Right Republicans are for the crisis we’re in.)

Overall, the impression I had was one of a true grassroots protest. People were angry at the violation of our rights. People expressed it in terms of outrage over spending and taxation.

The speakers weren’t very good overall, but they were sincere and angry.

This is the first protest I have ever gone to. I have always thought that the battle of ideas is won through conventionally intellectual pursuits: writing and teaching.

But there is a time to speak out in the form of a protest. This was one of those times.

I hope we see more Tea Parties.

Thank you, Rick “Sam Adams” Santelli for issuing the clarion call that was heard around the country.

I attended the Tea Party in downtown Dallas – one of several that were held yesterday throughout the Fort Worth/Dallas Metroplex.   I am not good at guessing crowd sizes – local media reports say that “several thousand” attended the downtown Dallas event.  The Fort Worth event was held in a stadium where it is easier to make a count and that attracted over 4,000 protesters.   Several events in the suburbs had crowds that local media outlets say ran into the  several hundred.   While Fort Worth is home, I attended the Dallas event as it was closer to where I work and was the largest and best publicized one in the area and the one most likely to get media attention. 

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In my last post I linked to Paul Krugman’s column in which he calls Republicans and the Tea Party protests “crazy.” Today more liberals look at the Tea Parties and see insanity. There’s nothing wrong with America that could possibly invite protest! These people must be crazy!

Marc Cooper writes, “Anti-Obama Taxpayer Tea Parties steeped in insanity.”

The Tea Party movement, more than anything else, is a rather garish display of a Republican right that seems to have lost not only the national elections but also any semblance of political bearings. Staying on this course, the GOP risks — in the words of one pundit — becoming “the Talk Radio Republican Party.”

I love it when leftists give Republicans advice. Somehow it always comes down to, “If you don’t conform to us, you will suffer.”

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I  happened to be walking past the Ayn Rand selections in the fiction section of a bookstore last night and spotted an edition of Anthem that I had not seen before. When I opened it up,  I noticed a passage from Ayn Rand’s introduction to the book’s 1946 edition that I had forgotten about and which struck me as being extremely timely in today’s context:

The greatest guilt today is that of people who accept collectivism by moral default; the people who seek protection from the necessity of taking a stand, by refusing to admit to themselves the nature of that which they are accepting; the people who support plans specifically designed to achieve serfdom, but hide behind the empty assertion that they are lovers of freedom, with no concrete meaning attached to the word; the people who believe that the content of ideas need not be examined, that principles need not be defined, and that facts can be eliminated by keeping one’s eyes shut. They expect, when they find themselves in a world of bloody ruins and concentration camps, to escape moral responsibility by wailing: “But I didn’t mean this!”

Those who want slavery should have the grace to name it by its proper name. They must face the full meaning of that which they are advocating or condoning; the full, exact, specific meaning of collectivism, of its logical implications, of the principles upon which it is based, and of the ultimate consequences to which these principles will lead.

They must face it, then decide whether this is what they want or not.

Isn’t that a perfect description of today’s liberals and self-described moderates?   I say “liberals” as opposed to “Leftists” because Leftists are those who already have decided that slavery is what they want but dare not call it by its proper name lest the people they wish to enslave catch on.  

One positive trend I have noticed recently is that, despite whatever disagreements I might have with them, a number of conservative commentators, especially on talk radio, are beginning to call a spade a spade.    When I first became aware of politics as a teenager, one of the things that frustrated me was the fact that there was, at the time, an almost unspoken rule even among staunch conservatives that to refer to socialism as “socialism” in public was a huge no-no that would immediately place one in the ranks of the kook fringe.    

Today, even New York Times reporters dare utter the word and question the President about it.   Some commentators are  beginning to use terms such as “authoritiarian” and “collectivism” and radio talk show host Mark Levin has been regularly using the term “statist” over the  past several months.   Such terminology is not only accurate, it is very much needed right now. Accurate terminology makes it more difficult for the better sorts of liberals and moderates to continue practicing their evasion and it enables those who usually do not pay all that much attention to politics to more quickly grasp what is going on and what is at stake.  

The only downside is that it does have the effect of further radicalizing and emboldening the Leftists.  People who have no illusions that what they are after is  slavery  and power for the sake of power are far less squeamish when it comes to “breaking a few eggs” in order to make their omlets.  We can only hope that as the Leftists become increasingly bold and thuggish sufficient numbers of liberals, moderates and non-participants still have within them what it takes to wake up and realize what is happening.

A recent poll by the Rasmussen Reports indicates that support for “capitalism” has dropped to 53% of those surveyed. Given the pillorying the “free market” has endured by President Obama, I am honestly surprised that that many Americans would admit to believing in capitalism.

The problem with this survey is that most Americans haven’t the faintest notion of what “capitalism” means. When Obama can say “I strongly believe in a free-market system” and no one disputes that, I think it’s safe to say that the definition of capitalism has become too inclusive.

Capitalism is the political system that protects the individual’s rights to life, liberty, and property. That definition is sufficient to distinguish it from all the other political systems that ever were or ever will be. Capitalism is not “the political system that has markets” or “the political system where lots of industries are private” or the tautologous “the political system of the United States.” European socialism fits many of those descriptions, and that’s what the leftists are counting on.

Words and definitions are important. We defenders of freedom have let “liberalism” and “progressive” slip out of our grasp, but we must not let them take “capitalism.” It gives statists the guise of respectability, of being descended from a tradition of freedom, individualism, and independence that made this country great. They know that and they use it at every opportunity. We must call them on it.

[UPDATE: Added definition paragraph as an obvious oversight.]

The Sunday 4/5/09 Detroit Free Press has three editorials,here, here, and here, that are chickens coming home to roost. They are titled
>”Michigan must take long view to fix growing gap between revenues, spending.”
>”How the budget soared out of reach”
>Emergency cuts are no long-term fix”
and each one calls for long-term thinking and decries all the concrete bound, range of the moment fixes of the past. For example:

Even in this time of economic crisis — especially in this time of economic crisis — lawmakers and the governor must summon the fortitude to make long-range fixes.

And:

Finally — and this is truly Step One — Lansing has to make long-term projections and honor them. Officials can visualize the tightrope walk or use another mental image, but they have to budget as if every decision will make a difference 10 years from now — because it does.

And finally:

In other words, emergency cuts, extreme as they may be, rarely represent the kind of change that would bring the budget into balance over the long haul.

I left comments in the online edition one of which said:

“This is the third editorial in the Freep today calling for long-term or long view thinking. And properly so. Long range thinking is desperately needed today nationally not just in Michigan. But thinking long-term is precisely what pragmatism discourages. The father of the economic policies that President Obama is currently deploying, John Keynes, once remarked, in response to a question on the long-term consequences of his policies, “In the long run, we’re all dead”, in other words, who cares about the long-term? It is this short term thinking that the media has adopted in its advice to politicians, and to us, on how to fix things. A principled method of thinking is sorely needed but before the press can adopt one it must realize that pragmatism is a disastrous method of thinking and abandon it.”

And:

All three editorials taken together are screaming “Pragmatism doesn’t work”, yet the authors don’t seem to to see it that way.

This is the dead end of pragmatism and what it will do to a human mind. A pragmatist, looking at its disastrous results, can only stamp his feet and insist that short-term thinking must be made to have good long-term results. How? Somehow.

Business Week’s Debate Room features a debate between Onkar Ghate and Christina Patterson, a Brit who is obviously a leftist. The difference in the quality of their arguments is striking. Ghate argues that Ayn Rand provides the philosophical foundation for the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness put forth in the Declaration of Independence. Patterson offers nothing but sneers, and asserts without evidence that Rand is a “crypto-fascist.”

Patterson’s argument, or lack thereof, is so typical of the left. Instead of a principled discussion of ideas, they go for ad hominem attacks and intimidation.

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Rush Limbaugh had an outstanding monologue on his program today in which he praised and quoted Ayn Rand – including significant reference to one of my favorite Rand quotes about the smallest minority on Earth being the individual. Limbaugh praised self-interest, denounced sacrifice and said that he planned to spend more time on the issue in a future program. It is definitely worth taking a moment to read the monologue – if you are pressed for time, start reading at the third paragraph down.

Below is the conclusion of the monologue in which he describes Peter Keating type personalities as drags on society who are harming the country.  This (along with his wonderful sense of humor) is a great example of why, whatever philosophical disagreements I might occasionally have with him, Rush Limbaugh is by far my favorite conservative.

When any of you decide to do away with pursuing what you want in your best self-interest, you are sacrificing who you are.  You are giving up control of your essence, and you are saying, I would rather be a member of a group that is approved by people so that I don’t get criticized or so that I’m thought of as enlightened or so that I’m thought of as advanced.  In the process, you are helping to destroy the very foundational building blocks of the greatest country on earth, the country in which you happen to be born and the country in which you happen to live.  So giving up your individual identity, giving up who you are, sacrificing your passions and your desires and your own self-interests for the so-called common good, who gets to define the common good?  I would define the common good as everybody acting as an individual, born as he or she is, pursuing self-interest.  That’s the common good.  That built cities; that built a great country; that built railroads and engines.  It built airplanes.  It built everything.  People denying who they are did not.

When you deny your individuality, when you give it away for acceptance into a subgroup of people, you are harming the country; you are letting the country down; you are not pulling your weight.  You are seeking approval, self-love and acceptance from all of the wrong sources.  You’re giving up the greatest gift you ever had, and that’s who you are.  And we have an administration that wants you to willingly and excitedly, eagerly give up who you are for a common good they define, a common good that requires you to deny who you are, your individuality, what makes you different from everybody else, whether you’re not as good or whether you’re much better at certain things.  You will become a number.  You will become a robot who can be programmed and inspired and motivated to behave in approved ways, and you will be taught to think you are virtuous when doing so, when all you’ve done is sold yourself and your country out.  You give up your individuality, you sacrifice who you are, you allow that to be taken away for some mythical status as a member of a group, you are giving up your passion to become a moderate, or worse.  People without passion never built anything.  People without passion never got one thing done.  People without passion are drags on achievement and accomplishment.  That’s what this administration wants you to become.

Below the fold is a comment I posted earlier on Dr. Helen’s blog entry  “If you made it yourself,….Why shouldn’t you keep it, you made it…”

It contains my argument on why it is contradictory for altruists to define themselves as “people that care”.  I am addressing a commenter “Laura”, who identifies herself as a Christian, but seems to embody a more individualistic version of such than I’ve ever encountered.

It’s one of the essays I’ve had bouncing around in my head for years that I planned to write on my own blog, not in someone else’s comments… but it came together well enough there that I’m going to call it done and post it here.

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