RoR: Forum

So will these zombies finally awaken to the light of reason? I doubt it. They will fall back into their religious comas and, constituting a majority, draw the rest of us into their clutches to consume our brains.

Post 1

Sunday, June 12, 2011 - 8:28pm

I found the following quote from Bill's link to be a "predictable" shocker (yes, I know, that's contradictory of me to say that) -- when I was watching that Mike Wallace interview of Rand:

Rand: �You love only those who deserve it."
Wallace: �and then if a man is weak or a woman is weak he is or she is beyond love?�
Rand: �He certainly does not deserve it."

Rand goes on to say: "He certainly is beyond it . . . he cannot expect the unearned, neither in love or in money, in matter or in spirit.�

Saying that a bunch of folks don't deserve love is a shocking thing to say. It's scary (it sure scared me, the first time I heard it). It's true, but shocking and scary. The first thought is to question whether you, yourself, deserve love. The second question is to ask what it'd take to deserve love. I have always found great wisdom in the sentence:

If you want a friend, be a friend.

It shows that you can't just go to the corner store, put some coins in the vending machine, and choose a "friend" who will pop out and love you for who you are and always. Instead of being entitled to love and friendship, we have to start first with some personal moral ambition. We have to want to grow and become better people. We have to try taking steps in that direction. Then, and only then, are we worthy or deserving of love. So, I came up with another saying:

If you want to be loved, be lovable.

:-)

p.s. Parental love of small children is different, because children, if they are small enough, aren't yet even aware of the possibility of personal moral ambition. Even less so if they are taught wrong by collectivist nursery school and kindergarden teachers.

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 6/12, 8:34pm)

Post 2

Sunday, June 12, 2011 - 8:51pm

Ayn Rand Praises Murdering Rapist for Violation of Social Morals�Really
William Hickman, a notorious murderer who raped and dismembered a 12 year old girl, was lifted up as a model for admiration by Rand for his selfishness and ability to completely disregard the mores of society.

From the Journals of Ayn Rand : �[Hickman's trial presents an] amazing picture of a man with no regard whatever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. A man who really stands alone, in action and in soul.� Ecclesiastes 4:7-12

�[Hickman�s] utter remorselessness; his pride in his criminal career and in things that are considered a �disgrace�; his boasting of more and more crimes and his open joy at shocking people�his utter lack of anything that is considered a �virtue�; his strength, as shown in his unprecedented conduct during his trial and sentencing�his immense, explicit egoism � a thing the mob never forgives; and his cleverness, which makes the mob feel that a superior mind can exist entirely outside of is established morals.� Revelation 13:5-6

�A strong man can eventually trample society under his feet. [William Hickman] was not strong enough. But is that his crime? Is it his crime that he was too impatient, fiery and proud to go that slow way? That he was not able to serve, when he felt worthy to rule; to obey, when he wanted to command�He was superior and he wanted to live as such � and his is the one thing society does not permit.� Luke 1:49-53

I found the above to be especially disingenuous. It is obvious that the writer is engaged in cheap slander and is deliberately practicing dissemble. In her 2nd Phil Donahue interview (her last-ever interview), Rand said "I am the arch-enemy of [initiated] physical force." This is true and easily ascertainable by even rudimentary readings of Rand, yet the writer of the above presents the opposite view of Rand (that she praised the initiation of physical force among humans), all for the immoral purpose of cheap and dirty slander.

What a terrible thing to do to, to misrepresent someone so much -- for your own, devious motives.

Ed

Post 3

Sunday, June 12, 2011 - 9:05pm

Her views on Hickman are taken entirely out of context. She is referring to his psychology -- his psychology of independence and self-assertiveness -- not to the manner in which he expressed it.

Steve Wolfer wrote a nice explanation of her purpose in describing Hickman the way she did:

http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/NewsDiscussions/2569.shtml

Post 4

Sunday, June 12, 2011 - 9:23pm

Ed: "I found the above to be especially disingenuous. It is obvious that the writer is engaged in cheap slander and is deliberately practicing dissemble"

Ed, I took on the Rand/Hickman attacks in a blog post at Objectivish,: "On Ayn Rand and William Hickman: Think Twice."

There, I contrast the claims against Rand's attitude towards the real Hickman, who she called a degenerate, while countering with her review, from The Romantic Manifesto, of A Seance on a Wet Afternoon, a movie she claimed was celebrated by the New York Times FOR the degeneracy.

As my blog post makes clear, Rand clearly does not celebrate serial killers, but it is the left that makes excuses for them. Apparently, I struck a nerve, too, because someone posted a link to it, as a defense of Rand, in a discussion at nakedcapitalism.com, which prompted economist Yves Smith to call it "intellectually dishonest":

"This article does not refute the contention. It asserts that Rand did not admire and idolize Hickman, but provides not a shred of evidence (no quotes from her journal, while the Alternet article did). Moreover, its claim that the Left idealized serial killers is based on�.a 1964 review of a
horror movie? And one that never got any kind of a following? This is just plain intellectually dishonest. Now there could be a case to be made in Rand�s defense on this matter, but that post most certainly is not it."

The truth was that it was she who was the one evading (see my original blog post for my rebuttal.) But for the discussion here, Smith's attack seems more of a projection of her own violent tendencies, given her own wish for the Left to start its own "Pitchfork Party" as an outlet for "lefty anger" � la the Tea Party. Smith revealed her own penchant for violence to change minds:

"In the stone ages of my youth, the left was feared (some of that was due to the violence of the 1960s: riots, demonstrations, the SDS, the Weather Underground, to name a few), in fact so feared it led to the concerted right wing push that started in the 1970s. But then again, the left was also much further to the left.

"...Some of my colleagues were having fun by e-mail coming up with the name for a leftie movement to oppose the Tea Partiers. This was all in good fun, but they came up with Cammomile, which per Bill Black could stand for �Creative Anti-imperialist Majoritarian Movement Of Morally Illuminated Liberal Enterpreneurs.�

"How about something more to the point, like the Pitchfork Party? In all seriousness, why has no movement emerged on the left to channel the considerable disappointment and anger of progressives?"

Smith says my refutation is intellectually dishonest; I say it hit her a little too close to home with her "fear-inducing" methods...

Pot. Kettle. Black.

(Edited by Joe Maurone on 6/13, 5:53am)

Post 5

Monday, June 13, 2011 - 4:15am

Ed wrote:

If you want to be loved, be lovable.

Objectivist psychologist Dr. Edwin Locke actually said this almost verbatim in his lecture on goal setting. He then named some ways to make oneself more lovable such as fitness, hygiene, etc. This contrasts against the "love me as I am" crowd.

Post 6

Monday, June 13, 2011 - 4:56am

As a matter of fact we did have the "Pitchfork Party" Smith calls for. It was called the Coffee Party Movement, and it sank without a trace.

Post 7

Monday, June 13, 2011 - 11:19am

Love is one of the strongest gradients we know. We do not love equally in all directions, at all distances.

We love very selectively, with intense discrimination. The attempts to diffuse the fact of that and enact a 'forced association' of uniform love in all directions, at all distances, is doomed to fail a miserable death.

It is the universal end of love, not the birth of universal love.

As for the topic of this thread, in what theocratic political context would it be applicable?

Post 8

Monday, June 13, 2011 - 4:49pm

Update regarding the anti-Rand website that opened this thread:

Glenn Beck and his crew say, "...[anti-Rand] ads come from Obama spiritual adviser Jim Wallis"

And, on "...the American Values Network, the site says their media and commercials are paid for by 'Faithful America' - an organization founded by Jim Wallis..."

"... another ad they are running defends Jim Wallis while attacking Glenn, but fails to note the connection between the organization and its leader."

"And, of course, the group has tied to George Soros. ... they received at least $800,000 from Soros.org, his website for the Open Society Institute."

�They also met with President Ahmadinejad face to face and called for more face to face meetings with him, with the government.�

"They received a $250,000 grant designed to help mainstream faith leaders become, 'much better equipped with talking points, policy papers, intellectual support, prepared testimony, draft op eds, sermons, study guides and church bulletins and more able to unite around shared policy agenda'.�

Take a look here and here.
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Ideas stand on their own, but that doesn't mean it isn't good to know who the players are and what they are up to.

(I put this same post on the other recent thread about material from this web site)

Post 9

Monday, June 13, 2011 - 6:55pm