The New Clarion

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) was asked a tough question: “Out of every dollar that I earn, how much do you think I deserve to keep?” I have a smidgeon of sympathy for the Congresswoman. From a statist politician’s point of view, the question is impossible to answer. If they were honest, they would say 0% […]

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I often disagree with the religious pragmatist Michael Medved, but he is right when he says to the birthers, “Please shut up.” World Net Daily leads the campaign to prove Obama is constitutionally ineligible to be president. Their latest post on the issue claims that the White House is in panic mode over Jerome Corsi’s […]

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During the health care “debate” — or suppression of debate — the White House asked people to send in anything that looked “fishy” from their opponents. Now they put out an even more ham-handed attempt to intimidate Americans: Attack Watch. It is currently being laughed off the internet, which is a good sign. The Democrats […]

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On Facebook Betsy Speicher links to a remarkable 1943 letter from Ayn Rand to a Reverend. The letter is for sale on eBay for $4,999. A few questions come to mind after reading the letter. Do these thoughts represent Ayn Rand’s mature philosophic thinking? Is it realistic to believe Christianity could resolve its moral contradictions […]

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It is common among the leftist elite, including the MSM, to question the intelligence of Republicans. They’ve been doing it at least as far back as Calvin Coolidge. Democrats are assumed to be intelligent. Watch this video of Nancy Pelosi explaining economic issues.

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We survived another hurricane of hype from the media. Why do the MSM eagerly anticipate hurricanes — instead of reporting facts — as if they actually want massive disaster? No, it’s not because greedy corporations gin up phony news to make money. No, it’s not essentially because cynical politicians love catastrophes for the opportunity to […]

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Walter Williams has a terrific piece on how Obama is more like FDR than Carter. If figures that if a Democrat wants to fundamentally change America, he would emulate the man who brought the welfare state to our shores. One thing bothers me about this. FDR used WWII to extend state power and spread collective […]

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1. Paul Hsieh looks at a chilling pattern of politicians intimidating big business. 2. James Valliant takes on Ayn Rand’s critics. 3. This headline made me laugh. 4. Send a gun to defend a British home. (That’s from a campaign in 1940.) 5. I thought this was one of my funniest Tweets. I write this […]

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In what kind of country can the state arrest anyone on a whim without due process of law? That would be a dictatorship, a tyranny, a country without freedom — precisely what Michael Moore wants America to be. “Pres Obama, show some guts & arrest the CEO of Standard & Poors. These criminals brought down […]

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At Noodlefood, Diana Hsieh asks the following question: “Does the Right to Life Trump Property Rights?” Diana rejects the notion implicit[*] in that phrasing, that “trumps” implies a conflict between these two rights — a notion which Objectivism flatly rejects, for reasons explained by her and by Dr. Leonard Leikoff in quotes supplied by Diana.  […]

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In Ayn Rand’s 1957 classic Atlas Shrugged, one of the bureaucrats, in response to the nation’s economic collapse, provides his reasons for Directive No. 10-289.

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Mark Steyn said this week, …the world is looking for about $4 trillion dollars of real cuts. And what we’re being offered, depending on how you score it, is about $7 billion dollars of cuts from fiscal year 2012. That’s, what, about the United States government borrows every thirty hours. So in other words, we […]

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A very common meme amongst religionists is the charge that atheism is itself a sort of faith, that the statement “there is no God” is as much an act of faith as the declaration that there is a God.  I haven’t fisked it, largely because it’s pretty much self-fisking.  In addition to its easy vulnerability […]

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Jeff Jacoby writes about the ban on the incandescent light bulb, passed by Congress in 2007 and signed into law by the wretched George W. Bush. The use of efficiency mandates to snuff out the standard light bulb was an exercise of unadulterated crony capitalism. It came about after big bulb manufacturers, frustrated by their […]

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“Even though altruism declares that “it is more blessed to give than to receive,” it does not work that way in practice. The givers are never blessed; the more they give, the more is demanded of them; complaints, reproaches and insults are the only response they get for practicing altruism’s virtues (or for their actual […]

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“One of the methods used by statists to destroy capitalism consists in establishing controls that tie a given industry hand and foot, making it unable to solve its problems, then declaring that freedom has failed and stronger controls are necessary.” — Ayn Rand At Pajamas Media, there is an appalling post declaring that “the American […]

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A Portrait, in Links, of Philosophical Panic (Built from Randex links, OActivists posts and a Google search, with apologies to Tennyson.)

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Today is different And tomorrow the same It’s hard to take the world The way that it came Too many rapids Keep us sweeping along Too many captains Keep on steering us wrong It’s hard to take the heat — It’s hard to lay blame To fight the fire — While we’re Feeding the flames […]

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  In my previous writings on the topic of ideological causality, I have emphasized the “end of road” of an idea and/or of ideologies, as determined not by one’s intentions, but by the logic and flow of these ideas.  Even a completely passive-minded individual does not sit still; he will still drift slowly, “downhill”, towards […]

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