What was Ayn Rand's position on WWII?

Mark,

You said, "...her treatment of foreign policy is generally weak, especially her writing on the Vietnam War, which at times is – I hate to say it – exasperatingly inconsistent. [**]"

I believe she was very clear and consistent and that it was the subject that was muddled and lacking in intellectual factions that were consistent. She identified that it was an act of aggression, not a civil war. That the North was by far the more totalitarian, but that the South was corrupt and at best a mixed economy with dictatorial features. She identified the right to oppose the aggression, but pointed out that it wasn't in our national interest. She was opposed to being in a war that the military wasn't allowed to prosecute effectively. She opposed the draft. She condemned the far left for siding with people that we were in war with. She pointed out the problems of 'police actions' versus declaring a war. I'm not sure what you saw that was inconsistent (not in the war, but in her statements). How could she have parsed her principles differently?

Post 21

Friday, January 2, 2009 - 10:14pm

Mark,

I said, "Some of those quotes on the ARI-Watch site are slightly out of context – some were about FDR as a statist ... domestically, and some were dealing with economics and the myth that WWII ended the depression." And you replied, "Comment: I don’t think the quotes on ARI-Watch are out of context, even slightly. It’s true of course that Ayn Rand despised FDR’s statism and the fact that he used WWII to advance that agenda.<\"

I'll explain why I see some of the quotes as either slightly out of context or failing to support your argument.

You quoted Rand, "In the case of World War II, [those overwhelmingly opposed to war ... were silenced and] smeared as ‘isolationists,’ ‘reactionaries,’ and ‘American-First’ers.’ and then you interpreted this to mean that Rand sided with the those who were being smeared. That is possible, but not a certainty. But if it is granted that she sided with, let's call them 'non-interventionists,' that is not the same as saying we don't respond even if attacked. It is an argument against those who would use smear tactics to silence those who advocate a position of not going to war except in the case of self-defense - which had always been the corner stone of her ethics and politics.

In that very same article - Roots of War, on page 85 of the bound copy of volumes 5-20, she says, "Needless to say, unilateral pacifism is merely an invitation to aggression. Just as an individual has the right of self-defense, so has a free country if attacked." That really settles the issue for me, because she has never been the kind of scatterbrained writer that contradicts herself in the course of just a few pages. And further, notice that she isn't defending the pacifists as being smeared!

You stated, after another quote, "...it is easy to infer that she was sympathetic to the isolationists regarding World War II." Being sympathetic to those who wanted to say out of a war, is still not the same as saying she was against going to war in the case where we were attacked. The logic just isn't there.

Many of your other quotes describe her writing where she equated liberals, and statists as stirring up war - she states that Capitalism doesn't need war but statist do, but again, this is NOT the same as saying that a country should not defend itself against an attack.

Your quote of Rand, saying "“No one has ever told them why they had to fight ...” is an analysis of the way politicians manipulate, the horrors of war, and NOT a statement where she turns 180 degrees from her oft stated position that a free nation should defend itself against an attack.

Mark, your final statement, "It is abundantly clear to the sincere reader that Ayn Rand was against America entering WW II" just isn't supported. It is clear that she opposed FDR, political manipulation, interventionism, smearing those who opposed interventionist policies, the draft, any social system other than Capitalism, AND pacifism. She supported self-defense - both by the individual and by the nation.

(Edited by Steve Wolfer on 1/02, 10:38pm)

Post 22

Saturday, January 3, 2009 - 10:27am

Brilliant Steve! Hoorah!

Post 23

Saturday, January 3, 2009 - 2:35pm

There was sufficient reason for the United States to enter WW2 prior to Pearl Harbor anyways. I don't really care what Rand's position on the war was, I don't regard her as the final authority on the subject. She was not well versed in international relations or foreign policy. The United States was foolish for taking an isolationist stance prior to Pearl Harbor. It stood idly by, letting the entire world burn making herself weaker in the process because of her passivity and the strengthening of her eventual enemy. Millions needlessly died because of the delayed entry of the United States into the war. Isolationism is the philosophy that it is not in your self-interest to use force against another who initiates it unless you yourself are directly assaulted, even if it means half the world is burned to the ground and taken over by Nazis or Imperial Japan. But that of course is completely contrary to your self-interests. Force should be used not as a final resort or as an initial one as Joe Rolands so eloquently put it here, rather it should be employed rationally, meaning recognizing both immediate AND growing threats to your life. You don't have to wait until every last neighbor of yours is killed before you can take action against the initiator of force. You can recognize long-term threats and take reasonable action to avoid almost certain injury or death. It was foolish to think the Nazis and Imperial Japan wouldn't eventually turn their guns against the United States. Isolationism is simply a philosophy of solipsism.

Post 24

Saturday, January 3, 2009 - 6:13pm

First come first served. Ted was – well, his load, pacifist, anarchist, and crap epithets were less than appealing – but I reply to his post first and leave Steve for tomorrow.

I think Ted is the pacifist – pacifist in the face of a U.S. government that is more and more no longer American. I’ll elaborate when I reply to Steve.

Ted says I’ve “listed Rand’s reasons for opposing FDR’s personal statist and altruist interventionist pre-Pearl Harbor views.” (Pause for a breath.) To repeat what I said earlier: Her views quoted in “Ayn Rand on World War II” are post-Pearl Harbor.

And they’re post “Notes for Top Secret.” Those are notes Ayn Rand made to herself, not intended for publication, about a projected screenplay. She had been approached by movie producer Hall Wallis and offered the job of writing a screenplay about the Manhattan Project. She took it, and began work. Of course being by Ayn Rand her theme was to be a broad one: the efficacy of capitalism compared to fascism, though frankly I think a government project makes a poor object lesson for the superiority of capitalism, nor does the evil of totalitarian states lie in their inefficiency, inefficient though they be.

Her notes were written around 1946 (if memory serves, I don’t have the book in front of me, anyway mid to late 1940s). Now which would you say represents her more mature and considered thoughts on WWII, these private notes or her later published work? Which period takes priority: when the culture was still saturated with a war mentality, or later, when the war has been illuminated by her further thought based on further knowledge?

In a conflict between even a published statement from 1946, and published statements from 1962, 1966, 1967, and 1974, wouldn’t you give credence to the latter?

And in a conflict between a journal entry and a published statement, wouldn’t you give far more weight to the latter?

I don’t trust Ted’s synopsis. I’ll re-read the “Top Secret" chapter of Journals and think about it. Even though I don’t consider journal entries or private notes part of the Ayn Rand corpus (ditto for Q&A) on anything like the same level as work she intended for publication, they’re still interesting and may be worth mentioning in “Ayn Rand on World War II.”

Speaking of secret things and poor object lessons, even as Ayn Rand was working on the stillborn screenplay, the bungled, slight in substance if not in form, secrecy at Los Alamos enabled traitors – spies is the wrong word – to hand the hard-won secrets of atom bomb production right over to Stalin.

I wonder if the exposure of Soviet sympathizers, “fellow travelers” as they were known at the time, and traitors such as Julius Rosenberg, David Greenglass, Harry Gold, Morton Sobell, and Klaus Fuchs – and the far-left friendships of some of the Manhattan Project’s leaders, including Robert Oppenheimer – contributed to canceling the movie project.

The exposure gets worse. Former Los Alamos employees Kun Huang and Huanwu Peng defected back to communist China and gave the bomb to Mao.

As far as the future security of the free world is concerned, the Manhattan Project was a monumental fiasco.

This isn’t a digression. Ayn Rand may have come to reevaluate the Manhattan Project. It looks like elements of her research for Top Secret went into Atlas Shrugged ten years later. Robert Oppenheimer contributed to Robert Stadler, the Manhattan Project to Project X. An interesting relation, but of course inconclusive. An artist picks and chooses and recombines, the superficial aspects of an angel can be used to delineate a rat.

Ted notes self-righteously that Ayn Rand advocated capitalism over statism. That’s not the issue here, there was no reason for Ted to repeat it except as misdirection. I’m all for capitalism and self-defense. The question is who capitalism’s principal enemies are that we need to defend ourselves from.

Ted’s post was rude, shoot-from-the-hip, self-righteous bromides one gets so distressingly often on Objectivist forums. Evidently he cannot engage his opponent intellectually, has yet to learn that rational self-criticism helps discover the truth. Ted takes one sentence from “Notes for Top Secret” and hugs it to his bosom, content that he has it all, forgetting everything else, blinding himself to massive contrary evidence. As for me, I see an apparent contradiction that needs explaining.

Whether the explanation is Ayn Rand’s ignorance in 1946 (whatever the date was), or something else, I won’t be able to consider until I re-read the chapter. Whatever the reason, former statements don’t make later statements disappear.

Post 25

Saturday, January 3, 2009 - 10:07pm

Mark, (pause for breath) Hunter, you would do well (*sigh*) to forgo the dramatics and the personal attacks. I am glad you don't trust me to synopsize Rand's notes on War, and I "self-righteously" await your report vindicating me or proving my inability to read.

Rand's point is clear and obvious. Her notes not meant for publication should be expected to show her true views on the subject. Your setting Rand's support for WWII and concern for violations of civil liberties as opposites is odd. They are not mutually exclusive. Opposition to dictatorship can be manifested both at home and abroad.

Welcome to the forum. May I suggest you fill out you extended profile to the extent with which you are comfortable? Thanks.

(Edited by Ted Keer on 1/04, 8:40am)

Post 26

Sunday, January 4, 2009 - 8:17am

In many ways WWII isn't the best argument against minding one's business as the other powers, in particular the Axis Powers, weren't doing the same with regard to the US (especially Japan's plans to bomb the Panama Canal locks) affairs. The fact there they (Germany and Japan) had long term plans to invade the US and Canada is clearly something that has to be considered in light of the war itself. Especially Germany with the production of both an atomic bomb and long range jet bomber to deliver said bomb on US soil. So, I think it's clear that the US' own involvement in the WWII was something that was inevitable in light of its meddling in WWI. Meaning if the US didn't meddle in WWI, most likely the US would have never been a target even in the long term and quite possibly Germany and the other powers in WWI would have come to a more equitable settlement that would have averted much of the harsh conditions in Germany that gave rise to the Nazi party.

So, really, there's no argument against the US involvement in WWII that could be considered in hindsight. At least not ones that wouldn't make one look like an ass.

(Edited by Bridget Armozel on 1/04, 8:22am)

Post 27

Sunday, January 4, 2009 - 10:59am

Ted sighs and mocks. Earlier his expressing disagreement using the epithets load, pacifist, anarchist, and crap wasn’t my idea of a welcome – he might have thought it would be annoying. Now he dishes out self-righteous bellicosity and faux courtesy combined. Dish rejected.

Before I reply (it will take two posts) to Steve’s last three posts, I might as well answer John Armaos and Bridget because the reply is brief: You (John and Bridget) are completely off topic. (That said, your posts contain important errors of fact. E.g. John: “Millions needlessly died because of the delayed entry of the United States into the war.” The U.S. and U.S.S.R. killed and/or enslaved how many? Some ally. E.g. Bridget: Germany and Japan “had long term plans to invade the US ... .” Some propaganda. Now back to topic.)

Post 28

Sunday, January 4, 2009 - 11:17am

Mark, you're being dismissive in regards to the facts of the plans that both Japan and Germany has for the invasion of the US in WWII. So, I suggest you take the log out of your eye before you point out the splinter in Ted's.

Post 29

Sunday, January 4, 2009 - 11:21am

Steve,

As FDR well knew, a U.S. declaration of war on Japan would involve the U.S. in the European war, so the effect is all of a piece. We agree, I gather, that FDR was eager to enter the war, and that (1) he tricked the public into supporting the entry (or at any rate you are willing to consider this), and (2) he used it to further a statist agenda.

In case you do question (1) I want to point out that Ayn Rand agreed with it. The following is from The Ominous Parallels by Leonard Peikoff in consultation with her [*], near the end of chapter 14:

Once again the American public, which was strongly ‘isolationist,’ was manipulated by a pro-war administration into joining an ‘idealistic’ crusade. (On November 27, 1941, ten days before Pearl Harbor, writes John T. Flynn, ‘the President told Secretary Stimson, who wrote it in his diary, that our course was to maneuver the Japanese into attacking us. This would put us into the war and solve his problem.’)

Mr. Peikoff references John Flynn’s The Roosevelt Myth (which was also favorably reviewed in Ayn Rand’s The Objectivist Newsletter, December 1962). There is now a book devoted to the subject which provides further evidence: Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor by Robert Stinnett, who had the benefit of documents declassified since Mr. Flynn's book. Stinnett, by the way, approves of the war and what Roosevelt did to get public approval; maybe that makes Stinnett’s exposé more objective than otherwise.

Mr. Peikoff mentioned the Roosevelt administration’s fraud again in a speech entitled “What Is a Just War?” given at West Point Military Academy, as recently as September 30, 2003. [**]

To repeat the two points I want to begin with: (1) FDR tricked the public into supporting the war, (2) he used the war to further a statist agenda at home (not to mention an alliance with Soviet Russia abroad).

Now, who is the enemy here? Someone provokes, and then allows, an attack on us (a naval base on the Sandwich Islands containing a fleet strangely and conveniently concentrated there), then shouts AUGH! a day that will live in infamy! – then declares the war he wanted all along. Are we cattle, to stampede to war on cue, while that man assumes dictatorial powers?

Roosevelt provoked the Pearl Harbor attack, knew about it in advance, and deliberately left Pearl Harbor undefended – 2,400 men killed. And we’re supposed to get with the program.

Again, who is the enemy? Who is the far worse enemy?

Japan’s military power [***] was directed at China. Japan had a long history of war on China, going back generations, no history at all of war on the U.S., and as a practical matter no way to wage an extended war against the continental U.S. (The war the Japanese ended up fighting was a defensive one around Japan and East Asia.)

To repeat an observation in my first post (#15), FDR’s administration had unconstitutionally – that is, without Congressional declaration – initiated war on Japan by engaging in a blockade against the country and air assaults on the Japanese in China. Calling the attack on Pearl Harbor unprovoked was part of the big lie.

The real “war” was between FDR and the American people, who before Pearl Harbor were 88% opposed to entering Europe’s war. He and his administration tricked them. After Pearl Harbor and the infamy speech many men eagerly enlisted (the depression helped), and men not so eager were drafted. Almost all suffered (think two, three years out of your career) and eventually over 292,000 of them were killed, some factor times that maimed for life. It’s an injustice to the victims to keep repeating an account of the trick – from, what amounts to, the point of view of the trickster.

Impeaching FDR by popular uprising, far from “turning the other cheek,” would have been “punching the guy’s jaw.” To observe this is not being “anti government,” it’s being pro honest government.

One of the books carried by NBI Book Service in the early 1960s was Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, subtitled “A critical examination of the foreign policy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and its aftermath.” It’s an anthology of essays edited by Harry Elmer Barnes in 1953. (The first edition was published by Caxton Press, a division of Caxton Printers.) Chapter 8 is by William Henry Chamberlin and entitled “How Franklin Roosevelt Lied America Into War.” The lie to which the title refers is FDR’s repeated promise to “keep America out of foreign wars” even as he was willfully getting it into WWII. Considering the time the essay was written it doesn’t have benefit of the new material in Stinnett’s book, but what there is is bad enough. [****]

(I’ll address the rest of your – Steve’s – posts in my next one this evening.)

Mark
The Concept Game

-------------------------------------------------------------------
* According to Mr. Peikoff’s wife Amy, Ayn Rand extensively copyedited the manuscript as he worked on it, and of course she wrote the introduction endorsing the book.

** He doesn’t have his act together though. This reference was only five months after he gave the talk “America versus Americans” which lavished praise on FDR vis-à-vis Pearl Harbor, conveniently forgetting all about the deceit.

*** Much of it from the U.S. having sold steel to Japan for years, even after its belligerency in East Asia was known. We can agree that the U.S. should have forbidden this sale of what amounts to war materiel.

**** The webpage’s dismissive sounding heading “antiwar propaganda” is not part of the essay.

Suprisingly, Second Renaissance Books, then independent of ARI but now ARI’s Ayn Rand Books, once carried Robert Higg’s Crisis and Leviathan, subtitled “Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government.” Not now, which is consistent with ARI’s Rah, Rah, invade Iraq, I mean Iran, position these days. In fact Second Renaissance Books carried it but briefly and it ended up on their Special Clearance list after one quarter and disappeared the next. Their catalog description from Spring 1989 reads: “How the U.S. government has exploited political and economic crises to acquire new, and permanent, power over the individual citizen.” Maybe someone realized that chapter 9 was not part of ARI’s agenda.

(Edited by Mark Hunter on 1/04, 12:52pm)

Post 30

Sunday, January 4, 2009 - 12:55pm

Mark,

Your last post dealt with FDR. For the most part, you are preaching to the choir, since I consider FDR to have been a manipulative statist.

I don't know how much credence to give to the views that FDR knew of the attack on Pearl Harbor before hand - but it isn't an issue here. By here, I mean it doesn't weigh in on the argument that Rand would not have taken a pacifist's stand. Because what FDR knew or didn't know doesn't change the fact of the attack.

As to FDR's policies provoking the attack - that is too strongly worded, or perhaps it would be better to say that 'provoke' is ambiguous. Our policies regarding Japan made them angry at us. But they were engaged in the rape and plunder of Asia which makes their feelings of less concern to a rational nation. The only provocation that would justify an all out military assault like Pearl Harbor would have been us initiating violence against them. And, if we did, as you maintain, that would have been unconstitutional, and might or might not have been in our national self-interest, and might have been part of a manipulation. But it still doesn't answer the question of what does a nation do in response to Pearl Harbor.

Rand answered that in general with her statement opposing pacifism and asserting the right of self-defense applying to a nation as well as an individual.

If you are arguing that we should have stayed out of the war, then what should we have done on Dec. 7th?

Post 31

Sunday, January 4, 2009 - 1:39pm

Mark, please stop playing the victim. You complain of my mocking you? How, by using your own words back to you? Imitation is the highest form of flattery. You complain that "load of anarchist pacifist crap" is a four-word insult? I would say perhaps one - and I am surprised, for that matter, that you did not call it a five word insult.

I suggest you do two things. Join the forum, and fill out you extended profile - you can leave blank any field you don't wish to fill. And calm down, and drop the paranoid conspiratorialist style. Don't bury us with a lot of concretes and questionable conclusions that are open to interpretation as if the mere number will overwhelm us. Clearly state your premise and argue based on principles - not personalities. No one here, for example, is a Leonard Peikoff partisan, but neither do we count attacks on him as scoring points. People here are open to discussion and argument and we can agree to disagree.

(Edited by Ted Keer on 1/04, 10:46pm)

Post 32

Sunday, January 4, 2009 - 9:20pm

Steve,

Regarding the Vietnam War, the title of “Ayn Rand on WWII” used to be “Ayn Rand on Past Wars” and part of that page read something like the following (the first paragraph is still there):

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In “The Lessons of Vietnam” (The Ayn Rand Letter, Aug. & Sept. 1974) – one long denunciation of the Vietnam War – she refers to:

The same intellectual groups ... who coined that anti-concept [“ ‘isolationism.’ ”] in World War II – and used it to denounce any patriotic opponent of America’s self-immolation – the same groups who screamed that it was our duty to save the world (when the enemy was Germany or Italy or fascism) ...

and goes on to say they are now against (rather than for) the Vietnam War.

We comment on her paragraphs following this on another page (Ayn Rand on Israel). Regarding WW II Ayn Rand is clear: she thought the U.S. entry into it was “self-immolation.”

In “The Wreckage of the Consensus” she writes of the Vietnam War: “None of us knows why we are in that war, how we got in or what will take us out.” And “... it is a war we should never have entered.” She writes at length – these are just snippets, you must read the article for the fleshing out – and it’s clear she was against that war. She does not say the U.S. should change policy and tactics and bomb South Vietnam to smithereens, or to use Yaron Brook’s phrase regarding Iraq that he repeats again and again: be “more brutal.”

Unfortunately she goes on to say that having entered the war “we” are “trapped,” that the U.S. must not withdraw, it would be viewed as “appeasement” – evidently thinking of the Soviet Union. I cannot follow, nor should you, this ‘what-will-they-think-of-us’ argument. And of course the U.S. did end up summarily withdrawing, to America’s great relief, and ultimately if not immediately, Vietnam’s comparative benefit. She says further on:

A proper solution would be to elect statesmen – if such appeared – with a radically different foreign policy, a policy explicitly and proudly dedicated to the defense of America’s rights and national self-interests, repudiating foreign aid and all forms of international self-immolation. On such a policy, we could withdraw from Vietnam at once – and the withdrawal would not be misunderstood by anyone ... ./

To repeat, I think the proviso, though certainly desirable, was unnecessary. As it turned out, that some people misunderstood the withdrawal didn’t harm us.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That’s one example of how I think she was a mistaken about Vietnam. There are others, but this digresses from our topic – what did Ayn Rand write about WWII, not war in general – so I cut it short.

Post 33

Sunday, January 4, 2009 - 9:51pm

Steve,

You argue that some of the quotes in “Ayn Rand on World War II” are taken out of context, and that all in all they don’t support the article’s conclusion.

In what follows, keep in mind that this thread is not about Ayn Rand’s general principles which one can then apply to World War II. It is confined – per the first post (#0) – to what she actually wrote about World War II. That said, she was consistent in applying those principles and I’ll consider the application in due course.

Your (Steve’s) first point is: Even if she sided with “non-interventionists,” that’s not the same as saying that we shouldn’t respond when attacked. That’s true, and of course one should respond when attacked.

You repeat this point several times. From “The Roots of War” you quote: “... unilateral pacifism is merely an invitation to aggression. Just as an individual has the right of self-defense, so has a free country if attacked.” I agree, and though our subject is what Ayn Rand said about World War II, not generalities that may or may not apply, this one does apply, in a manner I’ll come to in a moment.

In the article I'd claimed that another quote, something she wrote long after Pearl Harbor, indicates she was sympathetic to those wanting to stay out of the war. I agree with you (Steve) that this differs from saying don’t go to war when attacked. But again, the latter is a generality whose applicability can’t be what you claim, to her anyway, considering the date of the quote.

The context of the attack goes begging. Perhaps you assume the usual account of the war (which I argue Ayn Rand obviously didn’t believe by 1962 if not earlier), and consequently she ought to have approved of FDR’s response.

The general principle, a country should defend itself, is very true. More to the point, countrymen should defend themselves. The distinction is important, for FDR was the final split between government and country. Their self-defense, and the country’s self-defense, required that the citizenry oppose entry into the war.

From “Moral Inflation” The Ayn Rand Letter March 1974 – it’s worth reading again:

There still are people in this country who lost loved ones in World War I. There are more people who carry the unhealed wounds of World War II, of Korea, of Vietnam. There are the disabled, the crippled, the mangled of those wars’ battlefields. No one has ever told them why they had to fight nor what their sacrifices accomplished; it was certainly not ‘to make the world safe for democracy’ – look at that world now. The American people have borne it all, trusting their leaders, hoping that someone knew the purpose of that ghastly devastation. The United States gained nothing from those wars, except the growing burden of paying reparations to the whole world ... .

You (Steve) see this as merely “an analysis of the way politicians manipulate, [and] the horrors of war ... .” Frankly I think that’s a misunderstanding.

Yet again you say “a free nation should defend itself against an attack” and claim that Ayn Rand’s above statement is not “a statement where she turns 180 degrees” from that position. I agree, but as should be clear by now, for very different reasons.

Attack! Attack! Self-defense! – is just playing into FDR’s hands. Don’t bite the fait accompli. Instead remove FDR first, get out of China, then if really necessary go after the Japanese. (It would not have been necessary, but these alternate history things tend to gallop off in all directions.) An individual doesn’t defend himself by following FDR’s brand of nationalism.

Ayn Rand was right to have opposed WWII, and (the primary point here) oppose it she did.

(Edited by Mark Hunter on 1/04, 9:53pm)

Post 34

Monday, January 5, 2009 - 1:29am

Mark,

On Vietnam: I disagree in a couple of areas. You say that Rand advocated not pulling out of Vietnam because of what people would think of us. That has never been a standard of hers. What she did not advocate was a policy of leaving because of the reasons put forth by the left or by other nations. To Rand, appeasement was encouraging the enemy, giving in to their principles at the expense of your own and a disastrous policy to follow. What should be done is always an issue with two dimensions - the actions to be taken, and the reasons for taking them.

I'm somewhat stunned that you believe withdrawal was good for Vietnam. A carnage followed. Millions of people fled the country in tiny boats. There were decades of reeducation camps. Economic disaster followed with the collectivization of factories and farms. The loss of nearly every single freedom that had existed in the South mad it a Hell for decades. Add to that the other horrors following the fall of Saigon - like Pol Pot in Cambodia, like the the Sino-Vietnamese war. I agree that we should not have entered the war. But once in, it should have been fought hard and the military should have been given the lead.

She did not use Yaron Brooks' language, but I do remember her saying that the military should not have been held back and the war should not have run to suit political polls.

Post 35

Monday, January 5, 2009 - 2:10am

Mark,

We continue to disagree on Ayn Rand's position regarding national self-defense following Pearl Harbor.

You argue that this isn't about her general principles in this area - that WW2 is different. But I don't believe you have shown that. Given Rand's usual consistency it would take more than you have written to overturn her clear statement on general principle in Roots of War.

And, Mark, I think you are embarrassing yourself when you attempt to twist that quote regarding pacifism around to make it seem like it is about citizens defending themselves against FDR. It is NOT about that. She makes a point of saying individual or nations: "Just as an individual has the right of self-defense, so has a free country if attacked." She was not advocating that we rise up in arms against FDR!

You quote Rand as saying, "There still are people in this country who lost loved ones in World War I. There are more people who carry the unhealed wounds of World War II, of Korea, of Vietnam. There are the disabled, the crippled, the mangled of those wars’ battlefields. No one has ever told them why they had to fight nor what their sacrifices accomplished; it was certainly not ‘to make the world safe for democracy’ – look at that world now. The American people have borne it all, trusting their leaders, hoping that someone knew the purpose of that ghastly devastation. The United States gained nothing from those wars, except the growing burden of paying reparations to the whole world ... ." That quote is not in support of staying out of WW2 - it is about the broader issue of when and how government should go to war or not go war. And more specifically, it is about either going to war for the wrong reasons, or prosecuting the war poorly. She was strongly opposed to allowing the Soviet's to profit from the war, and for paying reparations. If you don't see that, try this: Imagine the following sentences following that quote: "Americans trusted that our leaders would not leave half of Europe under totalitarianism. They trusted that we would not let those deaths be in vain. That we would push the Communists back to Moscow and leave them disarmed and defeated. Had our leaders done their duty the world would have been spared that unnecessary cold war, Korea, Vietnam, Castro and the other horrors that followed from not finishing the battle against tyranny." I'm not saying that this was her position, or what she was implying - but I am saying that it makes as much, no, more sense than your interpretation. Historical what-if's are a form of intellectual masturbation when they become the focus instead of the principles in question.

I doubt that we can do more on these issues than we have. And I doubt that I've convinced you of my position. I'll just conclude by saying that if your primary goals are to defend Ayn Rand's self-defense principle regarding war, and to do so in opposition to the interventionist positions of ARI, you will be more successful if you drop these speculative positions - which aren't really supportable.

There are two very sharp-edged, hard, cold positions that Rand's principles require of us: That we stand by doing nothing while innocent people are suffering in other nations - despite the fact that we could intervene. We must take that position when it is not justifiable as a necessary defense of our nation. The other hard position is that when our nation's defense does require it, we must unleash the dogs of war and kill the enemy - even when there are non-combatants that die in the process. We don't accept these positions because Rand says so - they are dictated by reason and the requirements of survival.

Post 36

Monday, January 5, 2009 - 9:53am

... and there it is! Day of Deceit - I was waiting for this piece of revisionist bullshit to be quoted - if you believe in this nonsense then you will believe as Hunter does -

Conspiracy theorist - he talks like one - acts like one - knew it from his first post.

He is a waste of time.

I love the "provoke" part - since you can't fight wars (evil statist) - you can't even use sanctions, because that is a "provocation" either!

oh yes, and the excessive name calling and hyperbole, all while engaging in the very same thing - hyperbole and name calling - is a hallmark of the conspiracy whacko

Plus they have these websites, as his "ARI watch" where they can play out their own fantasies with each other.

(Edited by Kurt Eichert on 1/05, 9:55am)

Post 37

Monday, January 5, 2009 - 10:06pm

A little about Vietnam follows, though it’s a digression.

After Kennedy and Johnson had entered the war, the two options:
... (1) Wage a half-hearted war.
... (2) Wage an all out war.
formed a false alternative. Another option was:
... (*) Get out of the war the U.S. never should have entered.
And in fact that’s what happened, eventually.

Ayn Rand said both during and after the war (I paraphrase): The U.S. should never have entered it. Call that (A). And just once, during the middle of the war, she said: The U.S. mustn’t appear to be withdrawing because it’s weak, because then Russia might well think we won’t fight them if they attack us. Therefore, she said, the U.S, should (given that it’s already in the war) continue in the war, but not a half-hearted war. That sums up her position at one point. Call that (B).

After the withdrawal, she never once lamented that the conclusion of (B) wasn’t followed. It’s too bad she ever said it at all, but there it is. On the whole, and certainly afterwards, she was adamantly opposed to the Vietnam War. Her last essay on the subject is one long denunciation, and (to repeat) there is no “what do they think of us” in it. Later evaluations trump earlier ones.

For more about the Vietnam war, see “Honoring Virtue”, which reviews an ARI article of that title and has some material about South Vietnam’s dictator Nguyen Van Thieu, and a bit about the Gulf of Tonkin fraud. Call the latter a conspiracy if you want, it takes more than one man to commit a crime of that magnitude.

Post 38

Monday, January 5, 2009 - 10:28pm

Steve’s tone has changed with his remark “embarrassing yourself” and worse, like Ted and Bridget (and now Kurt). The mask of urbanity drops and the animal bars its ... well, let’s not be dramatic!

Steve sets up a straw man when he claims I advocated the citizens of the 1940s take up arms against FDR. In post #29 I’d written “war” – in quotes – and had gone on to say impeach. To work towards impeaching FDR the people could have engaged in active intellectual fighting, and eventually if necessary passive bodily opposition. The later might include civil disobedience, such as refusing to obey the recently enacted draft law. Armed revolution is too soon even now, more too soon back then. (I’m not here to offer a detailed program. See the little book The Great Silent Majority: Missouri’s Resistance to World War I by Christopher Gibbs, for how the Missourians resisted Woodrow Wilson – with limited success. You can get it by interlibrary loan.)

The war FDR wanted was a clear case of sacrificing Americans. At the time, whether your resistance was successful or not, refusing to be conned into that war would have been an eminent practice of Ayn Rand’s principles. If in spite of that you eventually are forced into the war, at least you put up the fight possible. And baring censorship you continue to speak out, before, during, and after. The time is after.

Steve re-quotes Rand on WWII, the paragraph beginning “There still are people in this country ...” (please read it in post #33). He claims this text is about “when and how government should go to war or not go war,” and about “either going to war for the wrong reasons, or prosecuting the war poorly.” Sure, and it refers to the latter options, in both cases, regarding both World War I and II. This is obvious. It’s like proving a certain ball is red by pointing to it and saying, Look.

But not to worry, help is on the way if you see what’s there. Steve proceeds to graft his own words onto the end of Ayn Rand’s text, and then says this “makes ... more sense than your interpretation.” I guess what he’s trying to say is that the grafted text is his “interpretation.” Again, it is absurd:

“Americans trusted that our leaders would not leave half of Europe under totalitarianism.”
Where does Ayn Rand imply this in the text quoted?

Americans trusted “That we would push the Communists back to Moscow and leave them disarmed and defeated.”
The U.S. was supposed to invade Russia? The Russians were in Russia, before the U.S. arrived, no pushing necessary.

“Had our leaders done their duty the world would have been spared ... and the other horrors that followed from not finishing the battle against tyranny.”
So Ayn Rand meant that everything would have been so much better if only FDR had prosecuted World War II correctly.

If so, why did she include World War I along with World War II?

No one has ever told them why they had to fight nor what their sacrifices accomplished; it was certainly not “to make the world safe for democracy” – look at that world now.

A clear reference to Woodrow Wilson and World War I. “Make the world safe for democracy” is iconic for World War I.

According to Steve’s fantastical method of argumentation the first World War would somehow have been a good war like the second if only something or other.

That concludes my reply to Steve’s post.

Generally Ayn Rand was an extraordinarily careful writer, taking pains not to be misunderstood. Are any of the many published writings quoted in “Ayn Rand and World War II” followed by something like: “This is not to be construed as opposing WWII. FDR was right to have entered the war, there are only problems with ... etc.” No, none of them are, check it out. What is the simplest logical explanation? It’s that she didn’t hold the premise “FDR was right to have entered the war.”

Post 39

Monday, January 5, 2009 - 11:38pm