[My name is Lawrence Black. The founder and principal content creator for Order from Chaos is my younger brother. He has graciously offered me the opportunity to pen the occasional opinion piece for his blog. We are both Objectivists, but we do not always hold the same opinions on every subject. Thus, this Disclaimer: The opinions presented in this essay are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Order from Chaos, it’s employees or affiliates. Any errors,
One of the greatest sources of motivation for me, in both my thinking and my posting here on the blog, is listening to talks by Yaron Brook. He is an incredibly engaging and prolific speaker and thanks to platforms such as YouTube I am able to watch far more of these talks than if I could only see those I attended in person. Indeed, I have viewed dozens of videos of his talks from all over the world but have only been to one
From 1961 through 1981, Ayn Rand spoke many times at the Ford Hall Forum, the “nation’s oldest continuously operating free public lecture series.” Earlier this year the Ayn Rand Institute made almost all of these talks available for download, free of charge. I had listened to many of these already (many have been available to stream from Soundcloud), but some were completely new to me.
I set myself the project of listening to them all in chronological order, with the goal of
On the WCAX news tonight they reported about “a pilot Driver Restoration Day” to be held in March where people who have had their driver’s license suspended for failure to pay traffic tickets can get their license back by paying some small fraction of the fine. According to the press release from Governor Shumlin’s office, about 22,000 Vermonters have had their license suspended for “failure to pay overdue traffic fees and fines.”
Given that, in a rural
The usual suspects, Vermont statists, are at it again. They are seeking to manage the behavior of citizens in a direction that they deem to be “better” and to penalize those who do not fall in line.
This latest assault is the renewal of a proposal to impose a 2 cent per ounce tax on beverages that contain added sugar such as soda and sports drinks. Based on prices at a local minimart, this would result in about a 27% increase in the cost of a bottle of soda. Supporters of the law
On Thursday, January 8, 2015 the joint legislature of the state of Vermont will perform its obligation to elect the next governor of the state from among the top three candidates from the recent general election: Governor Peter Shumlin, Scott Milne and Dan Feliciano. The legislature has this obligation because none of these candidates received the 50% plus 1 required by the state’s constitution. This is not all that uncommon in Vermont, and happened most recently in 2010.
Largely, the
I came across this interesting 30 question political orientation quiz on a friend’s Facebook feed and thought I would share it.
It purports to give scores in 5 different areas: Collectivism, Authoritarianism, Internationalism,
Tribalism, and Liberalism.
Unfortunately there are no definitions on what they mean by these terms. For example, what does internationalism mean? Does it mean just interference in the affairs of other nations or does it also include trade? From the questions I would
Here are the podcast I try, and mostly succeed, to listen to each week.
Philosophy in Action – Dr. Diana Hsieh and Greg Perkins answer questions each week, applying rational principles to everyday life. This week they talk about:
Peikoff.com: Episode 324 – Dr. Leonard Peikoff answers questions on:
Voice of Reason: Government Versus the Rule of Law – I don’t
Image found at http://adamfriedman.org/
As was pointed out in part 1, spending money on the spread of ideas is not a problem as long as force is not being used to promote or restrict them. On the other hand, using money to obtain some quid-pro-quo is potentially an issue, but likely not for the reason usually given. I include in this category not only spending on elections
Election season approaches, filling the media with observations and predictions of the dire effects of “big” money on our political process. One can hardly avoid the claims that Citizen’s United is destroying democracy, SuperPACs are corrupting the process , or billionaires are using their vast wealth to change the laws. But is money really a problem in politics or is it a symptom of something more fundamental?
Ideas and knowledge are crucial elements in politics and the primary