Last year I listened to a lecture series by Dr. Leonard Peikoff called “The Art of Thinking.” Among the wide variety of suggestions and techniques was the idea of “thinking in essentials.” It is something he suggested doing from time to time to get to the root of what is being said. It is not something he felt can easily be done in every instance as it takes a fair amount
The Two Sides of the One-Sided Affair
The Huffington Post has an article up about Jon Stewart blasting the House Republicans for causing the government shutdown over the “… f**king law!”
The article also states, and I don’t believe they are quoting Stewart here, that Jon:
placed the blame squarely on the House Republicans for going to great lengths in their one-sided fight against the Affordable Care Act.
My first thought in reading that was: And this is as opposed the the Democrats going to great lengths, including
Quote of the Day – Ownership Without Control
In my posts on property rights(here, here, and here) I illustrated that such rights have been eroded over time, especially since the 1930s. Today it is often the case that you can own, technically, a piece of property but be unable to make use of it as you determine is in your best interest. Ayn Rand discusses this on her essay “The New Fascism: Rule by Consensus.”
Ownership without control is a contradiction in terms: it means “property,” without the right to use it or
Podcast Round Up – September 30
Here are this week’s episodes from the Objectivism related podcasts I try to listen to. They are all great sources of information and insight on applying objectivist principles to everyday life.
- Free Market Revolution: The Regulatory State and Its Victims
Philosophy in Action with Dr. DIana Hsieh
- Keeping secrets
- Choosing an ultimate end
- Studying history
- Moral blacks and whites
- Rapid fire question on the government shutdown
Dr. Leonard Peikoff’s Podcast – Episode 289
- Giving an unearned passing grade because of pressure from university administration due to donations of the student’s parents
- Why is Iago an excellent example of a nihilist instead of someone like a James Taggart in Atlas Shrugged?
- Who is more despicable, criminals who initiate acts of aggression or the pacifists who condemn retaliatory violence?
- Should the act of cutting off a man’s penis be a capital offense?
- I am no longer in love with my wife and want to get a divorce but I am worried fear she will be become violent an harm herself or me if I do so.
If this is not enough for you to listen to, I’d also suggest checking out the Ayn Rand Institute eStore. They have a pretty large selection of lectures available for purchase
Quote of the Day – The Grim Joke on Liberals
It is amazing how many great quotes I find when I read Ayn Rand’s essays. Here is yet another one from her essay titled “The New Fascism: Rule by Consensus.”
In this quote she is referring to the fact that most liberals who advocate the redistribution of wealth do not bother to differentiate between the earned and unearned, or to concern themselves with the origin of the wealth. And especially they have no concern what kind of person is ruined under such a system and what
From Property Rights to Citizens United, Part 3
[My primary inspiration for these posts comes from the article “Property and Principle” from the Objective Standard, and Eric Daniels’ course “Property Rights in American History,” available from the Ayn Rand e-store.]
The United States is Not a Democracy
I want to make a comment about the form of government that the founders attempted to create. They understood from studying history that a pure democracy could be just as tyrannical as a dictatorship. James Madison, in a letter to
Quote of the Day – A Perfect Description of our Current System
In reading Ayn Rand’s essay “The New Fascism: Rule by Consensus,” she has what I found to be a perfect and succinct description of the current state of our government and economy.
A mixed economy is rule by pressure groups. It is an amoral, institutionalized civil war of special interests and lobbies, all fighting to seize a momentary control of the legislative machinery, to extort some special privilege at one another’s expense by an act of government–i.e.
From Property Rights to Citizens United, Part 2
[My primary inspiration for these posts comes from the article “Property and Principle” from the Objective Standard, and Eric Daniels’ course “Property Rights in American History,” available from the Ayn Rand e-store.]
In the previous post in this series, I covered how rights, specifically property rights, were seen at the time of the founding of the United States. In summary, property rights were seen as essential rights, without which no other rights were truly
Quote of the Day – Ayn Rand on Supporting Freedom
Swapping back to Ayn Rand’s “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal” for a bit, and came across this quote on upholding freedom.
From Property Rights to Citizens United, Part 1
[My primary inspiration for these posts comes from the article “Property and Principle” from the Objective Standard, and Eric Daniels’ course “Property Rights in American History,” available from the Ayn Rand e-store.]
Today it seems that one can hardly go a day without hearing about how “big money” is ruining our government. How we have “the best government money can buy.” Or how if only we could keep corporations, or the rich, from spending