 Magical Words
by Joseph Rowlands
The purpose of philosophy determines the means by which it should be expressed. If you think philosophy is to win arguments and crush your opponent, then emotionally-driven statements and a barrage of arguments are the standard formula. If you believe that philosophy is just a kind of mental game you play to show off... (Read more...)
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 Fire Extinguishers, And The Psychos Who Use Them
by Craig Drayton
From the 30th of June 2002 to the 30th of June 2003, 57 people were murdered in New Zealand. 12.3% of these murders were unsolved. This means that last year alone, the killers of seven people were uncaught and unpunished. In this same period there were 3,312 sexual offenses reported to police. That is an average of nin... (Read more...)
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Immanuel Kant: Ayn Rand’s Intellectual Enemy
by Edward W. Younkins
Ayn Rand considers Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and his philosophy to be evil and condemns what she perceives as the intended goal, methods, and conclusions of his philosophical arguments. She accused Kant of hating life, man, and reason. Rand observed that, since Kant, the dominant trend in philosophy has been aimed at t... (Read more...)
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Were the Founders Libertarian?
by Tibor R. Machan
In the fall 2001 issue of The National Interest Francis Fukuyama writes in response to my brief statement of the meaning of the term "natural rights," namely, that "properly understood, [they] are liberties, spheres of personal authority within which one does as one judges fit-even if it may be unwise, imprudent or cow... (Read more...)
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 A is A; Anarchism is the Arbitrary
by Lindsay Perigo
Anyone who seeks coercive power over others (for reasons which include living off those others' earnings) is truly comparable to excrement. Probably the greater number of politicians the world over are in this category. (Read more...)
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Atheist Internet Outreach Response
by Luke Setzer
Ayn Rand’s unique viewpoint manages to stir the awe and ire of both ends of the cultural spectrum in the United States. Leftists admire her staunch atheism but remain horrified with her advocacy of laissez-faire capitalism. Rightists adore her support of free markets yet detest her atheism. Both sides miss a central... (Read more...)
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 An Objectivist Statement of Resolves
by G. Stolyarov II
A formal explication of all the ideas held in common by Objectivists, and an endeavor to focus attention on these principles for the sake of their cultural propagation. (Read more...)
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Human Needs
by Joseph Rowlands
If you ask people what they need to live, they might say something like "Well, we only need food and water". (Read more...)
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Choose Life; Privatize Space
by Eric J. Tower
Privatize Space. Our very lives and civilization may depend upon it. (Read more...)
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In the Hands of Strangers
by Matthew Graybosch
If you think that your life, liberty, and property are safe under the republican systems that are touted as "democracy", think again. Everything you value can be voted away by your friends, your neighbors, and total strangers. They'll do so with what they think are noble intentions, because they don't know that their actions are harming you. (Read more...)
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Replacing Arguments with Name Calling
by Tibor R. Machan
Rush Limbaugh has claimed that the modern liberalism of Ted Kennedy & Co. is dead in the water as far as arguments are concerned. I am not sure this isn't true also of modern conservatism, a la George W. Bush-are there really any arguments in support of Bush's bloated big government "compassionate" conservatism?
... (Read more...)
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Free Speech's Fits & Starts
by Lindsay Perigo
Walking home from the gym the day of the first anniversary of the beginning of the liberation of Iraq, I encountered several hundred smelly Saddamites marching towards Parliament to demand the reinstatement of their toppled idol (I exaggerate the letter, but not the spirit of their protest). The vicious irony of their using their freedom of expression to demand that Iraqis be deprived of it, so soon after acquiring it, was clearly lost on these caterwauling grotesqueries. I alternated between seething disgust at the vermin & curiosity as to whether any of them might be given cause for pause by a moment’s reflection on free speech’s long, tortuous history. (Read more...)
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 Celebrating The Great American Songbook
by Chris Matthew Sciabarra
At a time when "performing artists" spit rage and revenge against their mothers, fathers, friends, and lovers with every permutation of the F-word imaginable, it is hard to believe that there was once an era of hit songs dominated by such romanticists as Cole Porter, George and Ira Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, Richard Rodgers, Johnny Mercer, Henry Mancini, Johnny Mandel, Michel Legrand and Antonio Carlos Jobim. It is even harder to believe that the hit singles chart was once owned by singers whose words you could actually understand, crooning songs that were worth understanding. (Read more...)
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1984-Style Surveillance, Today
by G. Stolyarov II
A national computerized database, federal spying on private bank accounts, the legal kidnapping of children from their homes and parents, institutionalized reporting on people's private lives... this, to G. Stolyarov II, smacks of totalitarianism of the sort George Orwell had described. (Read more...)
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Socializing and Privatizing
by Joseph Rowlands
I went to a lecture the other day and one of the speakers called himself an "egalitarian libertarian." That's a very interesting mix, so he described what it means. He's an egalitarian, so he believes that too much inequality is bad, and he generally supports a "safety net." Which means he accepts the principle of the ... (Read more...)
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"Errors of Modern Science" - A Philosophical Magic Act
by Rodney Rawlings
It all began with Ed Sullivan. In my early teens I used to watch his show regularly, and one day it included a tuxedoed magician who seemingly pulled colored hankies, billiard balls, and even entire decks of cards out of thin air. Much later, I would develop a theory that it is those who are most used to understanding the world who are most intrigued by a magic act. This was true in my case: I, who loved nature and thought I might one day be a scientist, was mesmerized. (Read more...)
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Toward a Paradigm of Human Nature, Human Action, and Human Flourishing
by Edward W. Younkins
I have written several recent essays in Le Québécois Libre and SOLO in which I have suggested the potential feasibility and desirability of combining and extending doctrines from Austrian Economics and Objectivism in our efforts to develop the strongest possible conceptual and moral case for a free market society. In t... (Read more...)
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The Paradox Of Choice
by Marcus Bachler
The central “Blur” is the famous “third way” politics that is supposed to advocate a blurring between right and left-wing choices. Now, Blur has found his new academic “single-choice” Knight in Shining “one size fits all” armour. (Read more...)
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Kant Can't
by Lindsay Perigo
One of Ayn Rand’s great insights into the conflicts among philosophers through the centuries was that they were usually false - the alleged adversaries, under her withering glare, were exposed as two sides of the same coin, sharing the same underlying flaws. (Read more...)
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Using Meetup To Advance Objectivism
by Luke Setzer
... (Read more...)
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"Government" versus "State"
by Tibor R. Machan
Concepts such as "government," like "democracy," "law," "justice," "freedom" and "love," to cite just a few, are what W. B. Gallie, called "essentially contestable" (see his "Essentially Contested Concepts", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Vol. 56 [1955-56]). I heard the characterization from Alasdair McIntyr... (Read more...)
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Giving in to the Terrorists: Spain says, "You Win" to Al Qaeda
by David Bertelsen
Spain’s outgoing Prime Minister José Maria Aznar had his flaws but there was no doubting that he was honorable, principled and resolute in the fight against terrorism. Having survived an ETA assassination attempt in 1995, Aznar understood the two basic premises of any war against terrorism: Firstly, that one sha... (Read more...)
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Something Old, Something New
by Eric Rockwell
A Marriage Proposal. Conservatives maintain that condoning gay marriage would destroy the "sanctity" of marriage. Gays say that if they are not allowed to marry, it is a violation of equal protection. Is there a practical solution? (Read more...)
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Flirting with Friedrich
by Lindsay Perigo
Back by popular demand (from Lindsay.) (Read more...)
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 In Praise of Mel Gibson
by Reginald Firehammer
Mel Gibson is a hero. I do not mean he is my hero, or a hero to any particular group, but symbolically, he is an American hero. There is another symbolic American hero named Howard Roark, who, though a fictional character, is the same kind of hero as Mel Gibson. (Read more...)
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