Obamacare and the Silencing of Dissent

I am livid today after I became aware of an obvious ploy to silence XCowboy2(Richard Gleaves)'s "This is John Galt Speaking" video series on Youtube. A company just issued copyright complaints against all 28 videos of the new and old series. They have also effectively wiped out 2 full years of view counts and discussion attached to the videos. That is 2 years of people questioning Objectivist issues and being debated or tutored by practiced Objectivists in the youtube community. Also, the videos were targeted on the very same day that Richard came out with this little parable about the nature of the current health care debate:

The Parable of the Octopus Man

Coincidence??? I'm sure it will all have been a mistake...to be cleared up after the vote goes through. But the tragedy is really the loss of that corpus of open, free Objectivist discussion. I find it ironic that the liberals claim to be champions of liberty while they seek to silence any opposition by whatever means.

"If the "liberals" are afraid to identify their program by its proper name, if they advocate every specific step, measure, policy, and principle of statism, but squirm and twist themselves into semantic pretzels with such euphemisms as the "Welfare State," the "New Deal," the "New Frontier," they still preserve a semblance of logic, if not of morality: it is the logic of a con man who cannot afford to let his victims discover his purpose. Besides, the majority of those who are loosely identified by the term "liberals" are afraid to let themselves discover that what they advocate is statism. They do not want to accept the full meaning of their goal; they want to keep all the advantages and effects of capitalism, while destroying the cause, and they want to establish statism without its necessary effects. They do not want to know or admit that they are champions of dictatorship and slavery. So they evade the issue, for fear of discovering that their goal is evil." --Ayn Rand

[Update 3/25/2010: It would appear that WKH didn't really have anything to do with it at all. As such I took out the link to their YouTube page and removed direct references to their company name. It appears that some computer hack was filing claims under their name, probably some automated attack. The videos were attacked by a different publisher soon after the other complaint was taken down. Some automated hack that relies on targeting chained videos? Anyways it DOES seem that some liberal with an axe to grind is probably behind the attacks. So I'm leaving the informative part of the article up and cutting out my invective.]

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

Obama's Hypocrisy: So Much for Secular Politics

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/us/politics/02campaigncnd.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY0Gttc1a-Y

Yep, Obama is now advocating the expansion and empowerment of faith-based programs. Who really believes that provisions against proselytizing and discrimination are going to be enforceable? How can he seriously justify funding school improvement through churches? Doesn't that mean that secular/atheist children will be denied access to these programs unless they commit the hypocrisy of attending church? How can such a program NOT be called proselytizing if it IS held in a church? So much for his earlier speech about the separation of church and state. I guess he's just as much a hypocrite as McCain.

If anything, this should make it increasingly apparent that neither McCain nor Obama is fit to run this nation. Only Barr is not offering to sell our country to the highest religious bidder. Of course religions have control over large pools of voters. That's exactly what makes them dangerous. And it's exactly the reason why the founding fathers were smart enough not to let the wheedling hypocrisy of religion even get its foot in the door of politics.

Don't passively let them get away with this! Obama has surrended any moral advantage he may have had over McCain. Let's try to save America from becoming the Iran of the future, and all the economic and political ramifications that would entail. We can do it, if we all stand for reason and if we stand together.

Vote for Barr.

Vote Libertarian.

(You'll never see a libertarian campaigning for government money to go to religious programs.)

And here's Barr's forthright explanation of the notorious FISA bill which Obama approved:



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

Lara Logan: A Rare Integrity

I live abroad and so I must admit that I'm probably behind on a few things, but I ran across this video on YouTube and this reporter impressed me with her carriage. I rarely see reporters nowadays who express convictions or who seem to be dedicated to rational discourse in the way Lara Logan does. I'll be following up on her work from now on. Enjoy :)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6I420_fPM2E

Even Joy Must Be Silenced For the Sake of Control?

As you read today's recommended news article, I would like to suggest that it may be enlightening to ponder these thoughts that have gone before:

"If large numbers of people believe in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech even if the law forbids it. But if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them."--George Orwell

"None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free."--Goethe

"It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have these three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence to practice neither."--Mark Twain

"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism."--Thomas Jefferson

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25083792/

Arresting people for a public display of joy is disgraceful. It is a clear violation of constitutional rights and should be stopped immediately. Public schools especially are subject to the mandate of public ownership, which means that basically the owners of that school are the very people who are cheering. A private school may have grounds for ejecting people, but as long as public funds are being used to pay for the ceremony, then anyone should be able to go and cheer as much as they like. At the very least there is no excuse for actually arresting people and carting them off for clapping or cheering. The government should put a leash on its goons.