Happy Independence Day!

On this 4th of July, as we observe the continuing collapse of our economic system and the incipient socialist takeover of the United States, let us try to remind ourselves of the meaning of Independence, its principles and necessity.


"Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgement and nothing can help you escape it -- that no substitute can do your thinking, as no pinch-hitter can live your life." -- Ayn Rand

"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted and you create a nation of law-breakers." -- Ayn Rand

"Whoever claims the right to redistribute the wealth produced by others is claiming the right to treat human beings as chattel." -- Ayn Rand

"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself." -- Thomas Jefferson

"He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions." -- Thomas Jefferson

"A man's moral sense must be unusually strong if slavery does not make him a thief." -- Thomas Jefferson

"I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all." -- Thomas Jefferson

"A slender acquaintance with the world must convince every man, that actions, not words, are the true criterion of the attachment of his friends, and that the most liberal professions of good will are very far from being the surest marks of it." -- George Washington

"Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness." -- George Washington

"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence — it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action." -- George Washington

"Power always sincerely, conscientiously, de très bon foi, believes itself right. Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views, beyond the comprehension of the weak." -- John Adams

"We ought to consider what is the end of government, before we determine which is the best form." -- John Adams



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWv5VZWlwRQ


The Declaration of Independence

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Ayn Rand: The Mike Wallace Interview

This interview was first aired in 1959. I wasn't able to figure out exactly when, but since it's 2009, I figured it would be nice to post it here on it's 50th anniversary. I hope you enjoy hearing Rand's views in her own words. Enjoy.

Part 1



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ukJiBZ8_4k

Part 2



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMTDaVpBPR0

Part 3



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEruXzQZhNI

An Interesting Debate

I don't have much to say this time. But I have been involved in some interesting debates lately. So, I thought I'd post links to them so you can check them out if you're interested.

Cheers.

http://www.mndaily.com/2009/05/05/rand%E2%80%99s-atlas-myth-america

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/robert-schlesinger/2009/05/15/a-conservative-tears-apart-ayn-rand-and-atlas-shrugged.html

(Please understand that I am not sanctioning the work of these journalists. The reason I'm linking there is because the resulting discussions make for a good read.)

Why Do People Still Not Get It?

I received the following question that someone sent to my YouTube channel: bakukenshin, and I thought it fit in nicely with the topics on this blog.

"What do you think of people who have read Ayn Rands books but refuse to believe in or accept the philosophy of Objectivism? Are they simply refusing the ability of the mind or are they afraid of the idea of being responsible for their own decisions? Or does it just go against too much of what they have been "taught"?"

My response was as follows:

I think there are several reasons why people could read her books and not accept the entire philosophy of Objectivism.

1. Most people read a book and they pick and choose what they like about it and what they don't like. Most of the time this coincides with values that they have already decided upon. So a lot of people take Objectivism piecemeal, which results in a lot of what you can see in the Republican party. That is a lot of people who try to push for capitalism and free markets (at least when they're campaigning) but at the same time pushing to restrict civil liberties (such as with the anti-abortion movement, domestic surveillance, etc.).

2. To accept Objectivism, people need to accept three basic premises. Reality is. Existence exists. Consciousness is conscious. Unfortunately most of the gatekeepers to modern philosophy (professors, novelists, poets, scientists, etc.) have been indoctrinated in and come to believe the opposite of at least one of these. Since these are axioms, unless they realize that there is no way to disprove these premises without using them, then they cannot be expected to accept them. In order for someone to change their mind on axiomatic propositions they need to start from the standpoint that reason is the final arbiter of their viewpoints, that they cannot resist what their senses and the rules of logic tell them simply based on their feelings or a priori assertions. But, if they accept that already, then they are already half way to Objectivism anyway.

3. The philosophy of Objectivism isn't self-evident. The reaction of many new objectivists when they've decided to accept it, is to assume that because they read Ayn Rand's works and it makes sense to them, that it must therefore automatically make sense to everybody. Unfortunately, this would be a mistaken assumption. Everybody starts from a different starting point. Some people have devoted a lot of time thinking seriously about fundamental philosophical questions. Some people have not. Even among seriously committed thinkers, it took a long historical tradition starting with Aristotle leading up through the founding of America and it took Ayn Rand's genius building on all that to bring the various threads of history into sharp enough focus to formulate Objectivism. Some people just make some honest mistakes along the chain of abstraction.

4. Some people know better and are consciously malevolent enough to deny it anyway. But be very careful before jumping to conclusions about who you place in this category. Sometimes I think Objectivists need to understand their own philosophy better before they start leaping to judgments about others.

I think it's a little like teaching someone a skill at which you are highly proficient, but the person you're teaching isn't. Like your native language for instance. You don't even think about it. But try teaching it to someone who only knows Chinese. You quickly find out that you have to know things about the structure of your language at a much more detailed level than you'd ever have dreamed of having to worry about before. More importantly, the process of clarifying your thoughts, so as to better present them to others, teaches you things about your own mode of thought and helps you understand your beliefs better than before.

If you seriously teach any subject for a significant period of time, you will understand that subject in a fundamentally different way than if you had just accepted that you knew it and left it at that. I think this is true of math, English, art, and especially philosophy. If you want to truly understand why people don't get it, and understand better just what it is that makes sense to you, then try to think about how you would explain it to someone, calmly and clearly. Try to talk to people about it. Try to teach it. Through this process of discussion, through refining your arguments, through thinking about the points people raise in opposition, you will come to understand the philosophy that much better. And you will have a much clearer image of what it represents, and which people are the ones who should truly be morally condemned. But remember, in these discussions, if you find yourself losing your temper, resorting to insults or irrational tactics or agencies, then you've already lost. You need to accept that when it happens (as it inevitably will), go back and rethink it through.

Objectivism is ultimately understanding yourself. You have to start there. And it can be the hardest place to start. Especially when you're wanting to rush out and change the world. But it is central. After all, that's where everything in Ayn Rand's philosophy begins.

I hope this helps somewhat. I know it didn't exactly address the question as you stated it, but I, too, am struggling with the line between people who are mistaken and people who are consciously evading truth. So, until I reach a conclusion on that, I like to recommend caution before leaping into judgments on people. It can be tempting, and it can be difficult to see the distinction. (This by the way is the very issue that led to the split between Kelley and Peikoff and why the "The Atlas Society" and "The Ayn Rand Institute" aren't on speaking terms.) The above is my best attempt to deal with it myself. Read as much as you can on the philosophy, both the good and the bad. Don't get sidetracked on following any one person's interpretation. Remember the most important perspective is your own. Try to form it in as balanced and rational a way as possible.

--I think the only thing I can add to this right now is in this prior blog post here. I am still very interested in the opinions of other practicing objectivists. If anybody has an opinion on this matter please feel free to post your comments.

Best premises,
American Anti-theist

Happy 4th of July!

As we come upon yet another celebration of America's political and philosophical independence, I'd like to offer this video commentary made by Michael Berliner of the Ayn Rand Institute. In it he pays eloquent tribute to the spirit that made America a colossus astride the world and recognizes the philosophical as well as political nature of the revolution itself.

Enjoy:)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWv5VZWlwRQ

Shoot the Quran. Shoot the Bible. Shoot the Torah.

Here's the link to the article which inspired my commentary this time: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24792627/

Well, it seems that once again, our leaders have to bow and plead and beg forgiveness for what should normally be a non-issue. So what? So the guy shot at a Quran? So what? It's a book. Paper, ink, glue. The man's job is to shoot people. But he wasn't doing that. He was practicing by shooting at a sheaf of paper. For this he gets sent home? While I think that there are better uses for books than shooting, a book ultimately is no more special than any other object. The only difference is the meaning that believers assign to it. And is that belief rational? Let's see, in Afghanistan they rioted and KILLED people because someone shot a book.....a BOOK!

Now, while his act MAY have been in bad taste, perhaps it wasn't culturally sensitive. But, after all, he was not a diplomat. He was a soldier. And a soldier's job is to kill. Killing is not a particularly nice job. And who is it that our soldiers are fighting? They're fighting Islamic fanatics. It doesn't take a lot to see why he may have some hostility towards the holy book that goads those fanatics on to ever more shocking displays of barbarism. So, let's be fair. Let's be egalitarian. Let's be honest. There's nothing that makes this soldier's act condemnable aside from our irrational concession to religion in general that it deserves to be treated with respect by default.

There is absolutely nothing respectable about religion. Religion has offered nothing to the advancement of mankind. Science has. Science can exist without religion. Religion is unnecessary. We should be more offended when our politicians cater to the spiritual vagaries of bigoted idealogues then when trained soldiers practice on inanimate objects. We should be more outraged when people riot and KILL in the name of their outrage, then when a man whose job is to kill quietly protests by shooting something which has no consciousness, no precious life to be snuffed out.

So, in the interest of fairness, I propose that we should line up the Bible alongside the Torah, the Quran, the Bhagavad Ghita, The Book of Mormon, and Dianetics. I say take a shot at all of them. They all have the same net value for human advancement....ZERO. If every copy of those books disappeared from the face of the earth tomorrow, the net impact on our knowledge of our existence, our universe, and the moral fabric of our society would not be shifted one iota.

If Newton's laws were forgotten, or Einstein's relativity ignored, or the Declaration of Independence lost to time, then we would notice the difference and severely. If the germ theory of medicine was condemned as heresy and forbidden, to be lost in the swamp of cloudy spiritualism, then we would notice the difference. There would be no condemnatory thunders of flame. The result would be no less subtle though for lack of theistic pyrotechnics. We would simply notice things stop working. We would notice people start dying in larger and larger numbers. They would die of diseases we could no longer fight. They would die of hunger because of food we could no longer grow or transport as effectively. They would die of cold and heat and exposure to an environment we had surrendered our only means of optimizing for human survival.

It's easy to talk about respecting ancient myths and fanatical ideologies when you're sitting in an air-conditioned room, with electric lighting, world-wide internet access and a TV chirping consolingly in the background. But try imagining the world ruled by those 'pleasant' myths. You would quickly lose all of those things. The engine that drives those creations, which keeps them working, and which ensures that you don't have to worry about where they come from is the human mind. Thousands of human minds working in freedom, with reason as their guide.

Betray those minds to a misguided respect of religious insanity, and they will leave you. Perhaps not immediately. The living minds are generally more tolerant than is best for them. They are forgiving. They will let us march towards darkness for quite a while. But once the line is crossed, those minds will be cut off. They will retreat, surrender. And where will all this faith leave us then?

The Real War

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8307333/

I present for your perusal the above link in the hopes that it will bring to your attention the nature of the real war against terrorism and what it implies for our future. It is evident that as terrorism becomes increasingly decentralized, that it will become increasingly difficult, if not impossible to stamp out. More than military action, more than headhunting the leaders of these organizations, we need to consider what it is that is driving this seemingly endless supply of suicidal mass murderers.

I think Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens have been particularly eloquent on this issue and I highly recommend their books. Despite what flaws I see in their arguments when it comes around to supposing what ethics should replace those offered by religion, or in stating that ethics are evolutionarily determined (as though we didn't ultimately choose what we believe), I think it is undeniable that religious thought is and has been the fundamental cause of the greater share of all the war, atrocity, suppression and misery in this world.

We need to cut away the institutionalized harbors of religious zealotry. We need to get religion out of schools, off our money, out of the pledge to allegiance. We need to elect atheist politicians, who will select atheist judges, who will uphold people's rights to not participate in this organized hysteria. We need to criticize the very fundamental roots of these misguided philosophies. And as Dawkins as said many times, we need to take off the kid gloves when we're talking about religion.

Religion does not deserve respect. It deserves ridicule. And those who would blindly march to undo scientific learning and replace it with fatwahs and Hallelujahs need to be exposed for what they are. Purely and objectively evil. We tend to give religious people the benefit of the doubt as to their motivations, but in light of the scientific achievements of the last hundred years, there is simply very little doubt to be left to them. There is no God. There never was. Objections to the teaching of scientific thought based on superstitious lullabies should be laughed out of every school board in the nation rather than worryingly coddled and nurtured. Religious themed schools should receive absolutely no money from public sources, let them earn it themselves from the zealots who support them. Why encourage its proliferation?

What does this have to do with terrorism? Well, the way I see it, Islamic fundamentalism is not that far removed from Christian fundamentalism. It just so happens that a brilliant man by the name of Thomas Jefferson thought it was a good idea to keep religion out of politics. That combined with the massive success of the American experiment, helped to influence Western culture so as to follow suit for the most part in practice if not in theory. Unfortunately we have, as of late, been quick to regret our declarations of human rights, the fundamentals which made America strong in the first place. No, we would much rather have security at home, while we get medieval abroad. We would much rather convince ourselves that while religion breeds fanatics, that religion is not in itself fanatical. We would much rather partition our brains to insulate ourselves from a constant stream of contradicting and irrational conflicts in our hypotheses rather than admit the lie and remove the contradictions. In Islamic nations religion IS politics and politics is religion. There is no separation and brutal dictatorships, death worship, and terrorism is what this has bred.

We will never win the war on terror as long as we submit to religion ourselves. As long as we allow the followers of Islam, or Christianity, or Judaism to convince themselves that this belief is compatible with life in the modern world, then we are feeding the very sickness which threatens to wipe us all out. We will never be able to secure rights for all human beings until we recognize that our society is merely the sum of all the contributions of the individuals in that society.

Of course, those individuals must be free to believe what they wish and say what they wish and do what they wish (within limits obviously). But that does not give them license to speak without rebuttal or to act without consequence. They must be debated and defeated in debate, over and over and over again. They must be challenged in the newspapers, on TV, in the movie theaters, in books, in blogs, on the street, in your neighborhood...anywhere and everywhere they are. Whenever they make a decision based on some mouldy tome of ancient myth. The Real war is a war of ideas. And if we do not confront them, or grant too much benefit for too little doubt, or defer to a false sense of mutual respect, then we may find that confrontation comes too late, that there is no more doubt and that that sense of respect was used against us and to the advantage of those too barbaric to ever countenance such a thing as rights.

Could you imagine a Muslim tolerating your right to free speech? Ridiculous, they have riots over cartoons....CARTOONS!!?? You've gotta be kidding me! Well, go take a look at the list of books your local church group wants to ban, and give up the lie that there's all that much keeping Christians from raising swords steeped in the blood of infidels.

The real war is in our heads and in our hearts. We have to win it there or we'll never have a hope of winning the military one. We need to undo God as a concept worthy of respect and awe. We need to place humanity in it's rightful place at the fount of all creation.

Get busy living or get busy dying. It really is that simple.