Objectivist Round Up

This week's Round Up is hosted by Rational Jenn.

Yes, it does

If your patience has been worn thin lately by the puerile irrationalism of those who bash Capitalism, Freedom and Ayn Rand, I've got just the thing for you: nip on over to BusinessWeek's Debate Room, where the current topic is:

The Economy Needs Ayn Rand

Onkar Ghate faces off against Christina Patterson and wipes the floor with her.

But the real treat is the comments: example after example of how to respond to the kind of "argument" against Rand that makes some of us cringe and want to retreat into our ivory towers. The imagination and variety evident in the collected demonstrations of rationality and rectitude are heartening, to say the least. Here is a treasure trove of enough intellectual ammunition to bolster anyone's objectivity.

(Hat tip: NoodleFood)

Mandatory volunteerism for ALL?

Well, this is chilling: Paul Hsieh posts at NoodleFood about legislation that could lead to some kind of mandatory "national service" for all Americans:

The National Service Threat

How does legislation such as this not amount to a declaration that we are all state property?

Objectivist Round Up

This week's Round Up is hosted by Erosophia.

Will the real socialist please stand up?

Long-time Oklahoma Conservative Political Action Committee chair Charlie Meadows makes it clear that he is anti-freedom in the latest edition of OCPAC's newsletter.

How else is one to interpret his declaration that social conservatism should come first? How can social issues be managed politically except through legislation? How would legislating social conservative positions on such issues as abortion and homosexuality not proscribe freedom? Social conservatives have consistently proved that they are willing to use the power of government to take away the right of people to make their own decisions in such areas. Their advocacy of the use of government force to intervene in people's private lives places them squarely on the left - not the right.

Social conservatives are power-lusters whose pursuit of moral bureaucracy has contributed to the expansion of government every bit as much as socialism. In fact, I would say that they are socialists, themselves.

"Situational" situations

Today's The Oklahoman contains a letter by one Owen Summers which contains the lines:

Their idea of free speech is situational and pertains only to liberal free speech.

What if I substitute "religion" for "speech" in that sentence?

Their idea of freedom of religion is situational and pertains only to evangelical Christianity.

Hmmm . . . That would seem to explain the behavior of people like Mike Ritze, Todd Thomsen and Sally Kern.

Telling it like it is

Steve Chapman tells it like is, in a column in today's The Oklahoman:

The financial crisis has been widely interpreted as proof of the need for extensive government regulation of banks, insurance companies and other capitalist institutions. The antics of politicians now that they have a greater role, however, are a vivid reminder of why they can’t be trusted with such power.

These days, every politician assumes that because he has a driver’s license and an ATM card, he must have all the necessary skills to run an automaker and operate a bank.

Read the rest

Thank you Steve and thank you The Oklahoman!

The Trouble with Republicans

Ed Cline's latest.

The Objectivist Round Up

And here's this week's Round Up, hosted by The Little Things.

My latest letter

The Oklahoma Gazette has published my new letter in their March 18th edition. Once again, I lead the column:

In his article, "Conspiracy 'synthesis'", in the March 11th Oklahoma Gazette, Ben Fenwick quotes state Rep. Mike Ritze, R-Broken Arrow, referring to a plot to destroy "our economic basis of free enterprise".

Rep. Ritze's bill to put a monument to the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the state Capitol proves to me that he hasn't got the slightest idea what freedom really is, much less free enterprise.

What do people such as Ritze, state Rep. Sally Kern and state Sen. Randy Brogdon think would happen to religion under a system of completely free enterprise? Religions would have to compete on a free and open market just like everything else. That means laws granting favoritism to one religion over another would be forbidden, just as they currently are under the U.S. Constitution's separation of church and state.

That people such as Ritze don't see this and persist in attempting to tie their favorite religion to support for "free enterprise" is evidence enough for me that these people are no real friends of freedom - economic, religious or otherwise.

Rob Abiera
Oklahoma City

Unfortunately, my reference to laissez-faire Capitalism by name was removed, but I don't think that changed the overall point I was trying to make.