The announcement generated headlines around the globe. Tens of thousands of men held a protest in Tehran against the bikini event. They also demanded the killing of Tara Jones.

Police started detecting and monitoring internet traffic involving hundreds of thousands of comments to the effect that Jones – and other women who followed suit – might be sexually assaulted. Concerned women’s groups complained that Jones was putting all women in danger of being assaulted, especially on International Take Back the Night Day. In many of the world’s major cities, extra police were scheduled to patrol the streets on the night of the event.

Jones’ plan was condemned by political leaders around the globe. One Prime Minister condemned the plan in no uncertain terms:

“My sexual urges can tolerate responsible conduct by women, and that’s what we want in this world. I unequivocally condemn what Jones is planning to do, and what she is calling upon others to do. We all enjoy freedom of sexuality and that freedom of sexuality comes from women who take precautions not to say or do anything that might stoke the lustful passions of otherwise peaceful men, causing them to engage in sexual assault”.

The opposition leader echoed that theme: “Wearing a bikini and pumps outside a strip bar at night runs counter to the mutual respect and tolerance at the core of beliefs that violent misogynists, and many non-violent misogynists, hold about women.”

Ultimately, Jones – who had received thousands of calls from would-be sex criminals, and who had seen many reports on the internet that she was being targeted for assault – decided not to follow through with the plan. However, her idea caught on like wildfire in towns around the world.

Six women in Britain defiantly carried off the stunt without being harmed. They posted a video of their demonstration to a video sharing website.

In Torontawa, Muslim Students for Individual Freedom founder Aamaal Adl carried out the demonstration by herself. Despite a bolstered police presence, she was brutally raped in an alley adjacent to a strip club. A note was found at the scene. It read:

“Dressed like that? You had it coming. You know how men are. We can’t help ourselves. It’s not our fault. Don’t blame us. Next time, wear a burqa”.

Fortunately, Adl survived.

In the days since International Take Back the Night Day, the police have responded. Royalton’s city officials have sent Jones a bill for $180,000.00: the alleged cost of the extra police presence. “This will bankrupt me”, says Jones. “Hopefully, we’ve seen the last of International Take Back the Night Day”, says city Mayor Marc Gharbi.

The six women in Europe have been charged with inciting hatred of men. A defence lawyer for one of the women foreshadowed their defence:

The accused women don’t hate men. They hate the beliefs about women that lead some men to rape or murder women.

But the prosecutor in the case says that defence is a non-starter:

“If that’s going to be their defence, it’s a loser. The fact that a person holds a rapist’s beliefs about women does not mean that the person will actually act upon those beliefs. In reality, it is only a handful of radical extremists who actually act upon the misogynistic beliefs they hold. By putting on this demonstration and posting the video online, these women have painted men who hold misogynistic beliefs all with the same brush. In fact, they ultimately paint every man with the same brush – regardless of his beliefs – because we don’t know what any particular man believes. This is sexism – hateful sexism, pure and simple – and it will not be tolerated.”

Police in Adl’s town have decided against sending her a bill. “She’s already paid the price for her actions”, explains police chief Theo Goodman. Adl has since taken to wearing a burqa, and to leaving her home only while it is still light outside. The chief says “it was a horrible thing for her to go through. It didn’t have to happen. But I hope her story will serve as a lesson to others who engage in such intolerant provocation of men. I commend her decision now to dress more responsibly, and to serve as a better role model for women everywhere”.

[AUTHOR'S NOTE: The foregoing news report is pure fiction. The names and placenames do not refer to any real person, living or dead. The particular sexual assault mentioned in the foregoing story did not occur in real life.

Brief Backgrounder: American preacher Terry Jones made news prior to September 11, 2010 when he told the world that he would burn 200 copies of the Quran on September 11, 2010, which he called "International Burn a Koran Day". The demonstration was intended both as a condemnation of some Islamic beliefs, and as a demonstration that Americans are free to express themselves by, for example, burning a religious text. Ten thousand men in Tehran rallied to oppose the plan, and they called for the killing of Jones. The Prime Minister of Canada said "My God and my Christ" are tolerant, that what Canada wants is tolerance, and that he thoroughly condemned Jones' plan. Canada's opposition leader, Michael Ignatieff, claimed that Jones' plan ran contrary to the alleged tolerance set out in Islam et cetera. The town in which Jones lives reportedly is handing him a bill for $180,000.00: the cost of extra policing that the town decided to employ leading up to or during September 11, 2010. Condemned and threatened by countless people around the globe, Jones did not follow-through with his plan. However, 6 men in Britain did: they burned copies of the Quran on September 11, 2010 and video taped their efforts. The video tape was uploaded to a video sharing web site. The six men are being charged with "hate" offenses. I know of nobody that has (yet) been murdered for burning the Quran on September 11, 2010. I do know, however, how the immoral government of this and other nations would cast blame were it to happen. They all should be ashamed of themselves.]

A case in point: the commercial media in Canada this week are abuzz (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, etc.) about a new book by Marci McDonald titled “The Armageddon Factor”. The subject of the book is the nature and degree of influence that end-of-days Christian organizations increasingly have upon or within the Conservative Party, and upon the governance of Canadians. The Harper Conservatives have been shaken by the book, essentially alleging a conspiracy theory – involving CBC and other left-friendly entities – to make Conservatives look bad (note the sort of admission that is implicit in such an objection). Yet evidence is certainly piling up quickly, with a number recent developments pointing to a conclusion that the governing Conservatives are indeed consciously, though incrementally, attempting to re-make Canadian culture in the evangelical Christian image.

Just last week, the Conservatives surrendered Canadian publisher and cannabis culture advocate Marc Emery for extradition to the USA for selling marijuana seeds (an offense for which one is rarely charged in Canada, and which typically results in either a $200 fine or some community service…the same offense, in the USA, carries a maximum penalty of death). They also announced that they were cutting off federal funding to the Toronto gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender Pride parade, but not because of any principled opposition to government funding of parades or culture: Conservative MP Tony Clement said that 19 new events will be funded instead. And just last Thursday, a large gathering of pro-life/anti-choice religious folk gathered at Parliament Hill, encouraging the governing Conservatives to reopen the abortion debate and ban abortions. This latter development gave rise to a debate on this morning’s John Oakley radio talk show (640 AM, Toronto) featuring religious conservative panelist Charles McVety who, with respect to the waging of a “culture war” on the issue of abortion, said boldly “Bring it on!” (McVety is referred to over 100 times in McDonald’s book, and is regarded by some as a danger to the Conservative Party because he is so explicit about the connection between Christianity, religious policy / theocracy, and the Conservative Party). However, McVety arguably is a day late and a dollar shy: introducing his government’s “anti-drug strategy” at a Salvation Army headquarters in October of 2007, Stephen Harper explicitly declared his government to be against “a culture” that has “romanticized” drug use (subtext: a culture that thinks it wrong to imprison people for using drugs). And, on a recent youtube interview, he declared that “drugs are illegal because they’re bad” (somehow missing the fact that although drinking gasoline is bad, gasoline production, sale, and possession is not illegal).

It is important to note, however – as I did in Part 2 of my “The Principle of Pot” movie (released on April 21, 2010: you can view it here) – that the culture that the Conservative government opposes is not merely a culture of pot smokers, but a broader culture of non-smokers and smokers alike that believes – in principle – that individuals should be free to make peaceful lifestyle choices without facing punishment or discrimination by the government. Such being the case, one would expect any individual or group who claims to advocate individual freedom should be first in line to condemn the Conservative party’s marriage of religion and governmental policy-making. Yet libertarians – who claim to be advocates of individual freedom – have been among those condemning the condemnation of the mixture of religion and state…on the grounds that condemnation is wrong. The basis of the libertarian defence of that lethal mixture: the notion – founded upon libertarianism’s implicit moral subjectivism – that tolerance is a virtue.

In a recent exchange on facebook, one such libertarian posted the following in response to my having posted this article on my facebook wall:

“In a free society, those of all view points have to be allowed into public life and debated rationally to the benefit of the public. These exposes strike me as yellow jounalism. Enflame prejudices, douse debate. And you have to be careful as someone who holds on to the idea of an objective good. It makes one more prone to restricting what one take as threats to their values.”

I initially replied as follows:

Without objective good, freedom cannot be a value. I don’t regard tolerance as a virtue: it is a vice. I don’t tolerate pro-tyannical views: for example I do not quietly tolerate Naziism…I condemn it. Likewise, I don’t tolerate the view that government should punish those who violate some alleged god’s commandments. And so long as we are lulled into believing that tolerance is a virtue, those who value their freedom will tolerate its absence.

Moral condemnation does not imply the advocacy of making immoral conduct illegal. The whole point of freedom is that individuals capable of reason should be defended from those who would use force to prevent them from thinking independently and making choices that deprive nobody else of his life liberty or property without his consent. The purpose of government is not to ensure that one makes moral choices, but to ensure that nobody obtains another person’s values without the person’s consent.

The same libertarian having written, in a separate but related wall post that:

…the marijuana activist war on the federal Conservatives is misplaced. The past Liberal government proposed C-8, signed the treaty that made it easy to extradict Emery without consulting Parliament, and approved the American investigation of Emery. This isn’t partisan. It’s about the proper role of the Government of Canada.

the libertarian rebutted:

The question is condemnation how? By directly addressing the claims of the vicious and demonstrating their falsity or simply falling back on existing prejudices against them as McDonald does?

I responded thusly:

“…condemnation how?”.

The question of what exists is an issue to be debated with reference to physical evidence, using a strictly logical process of thought/analysis. What the Conservative Party “is” is a question of fact. We can know what the Conservative Party is by listening to/reading what its representatives and membership say, and by observing what it does. Stephen Harper, its leader, has told the membership that “for Conservatives, it can’t be just about freedom” and that for conservatives it has to be about “policies that ensure” that people make “good choices”. Taking him at his word, and observing that his party just introduced S-10 and washed its hands of Marc Emery, such that he’ll now face cruel and unusual punishment for perfectly consensual behaviour, it is obvious what the Conservative Party “is”.

The question of whether a person or party “ought” (i.e., good) or “ought not” (i.e., evil) to do something is a question of that branch of philosophy called “ethics” / morality. Every “is” implies an “ought” or an “ought not”: a political party either (a) ought to pass S-10 and surrender Marc, or (b) ought not to do so. In other words, it is either good or evil for a political party to pass S-10, and it is either good or evil for a political party to surrender Marc to the USA for what he did.

When you are evaluating the actions of a political party, that evaluation is necessarily a decision about whether the party ought or ought not to be doing what it is doing: whether the party’s actions are good or evil. Similarly, when you are evaluating the nature of a political party, that evaluation is necessarily a decision about whether the party is a value or a disvalue; whether the party is good or is evil.

Keep in mind, I’m not implying any sort of childish correlate, like a devil that temps one to do evil, or an angel that encourages one to be good. I’m simply saying that the proper word to refer to something that is a disvalue is “evil”.

If your aim is to survive and pursue your own happiness on this earth, in this life, then your highest value is your own life, your highest purpose is your own happiness, and your only effective means of achieving your happiness is rational thought and action: a logical process of thought about that for which there ultimately exists physical evidence. In such a case, rationality – thinking for yourself, making your own decisions, obtaining life-giving values by strictly consensual and productive means, being honest with yourself and others, recognizing and accepting the facts facing one instead of evading them with delusions of evil ghosts and benevolent fairies – is your highest virtue.

If your aim is to win a place in a supernatural heaven, after you die, then living on this earth in this life is not your highest value. If you believe there is a big white-haired omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent entity that requires you to obey all he allegedly says, rationality is not a virtue to you: obedience is (incidentally, the meaning of the word Islam is “obedience”). And if that white-haired thingy tells you that dying on a cross for the sins of your brothers is the epitome of good, then death is your highest value.

I choose life, on this earth: the one that I can prove exists; the one that is neither arbitrary nor false. And, for a person who has chosen to live and to pursue his own happiness, ones own death is the greatest evil, the sacrifice of values/happiness etc. to others is what one must avoid, and obedience is a vice.

To a person who loves his/her life and wants to live it and pursue his/her own happiness, those who hold up ones own death as the highest value, misery/suffering as ones highest purpose, and sacrifice as ones highest virtue, are evil. As such, they are perfectly harmless so long as they do not attempt to prevent you from pursuing your own happiness, on this earth, in this life, by rational means. They are merely like lemmings, whom one can watch as they gladly [jump to their deaths]* and wait for an afterlife of unearned, effortless, after-life bliss.

I can easily co-exist with a person who lives as Jesus did. But when an evil person or entity uses force or dishonesty to deny you the freedom to making rational choices – to think independently and make peaceful choices for yourself – that is a person/entity who is fighting against your ability to live and to fulfill your highest purpose; it is a person who is demanding obedience and suffering; it is a person that is trying to force you, ultimately, to live according to his self-destructive, irrational and delusional code of morality. Such a person has gone from being like Jesus, to being like the Pharisees, or Pontius Pilate, or the soldiers who nailed Jesus to the cross.

Jesus concluded: “Forgive them father for they know not what they do”. When it comes to the Conservatives, Harper, and Nicholson: that’s BS. They know exactly what they are doing, or else they are in self-denial: “Forgive us lord, for we know not what we do…and please don’t tell us”.

“…condemn how”? By way of moral condemnation. By way of analogy. The conservative government is – as a moral evaluation – evil, by the standard of any person who chooses to live, to pursue his own happiness in this life on this earth, and who lives a rational, hence peaceful and purely consensual life. Condemn them as Christians now condemn Pilate and the Pharisees because, brother, that is exactly the role they are playing.

*NOTE: A request for latitude: FaceBook postings are hardly the stuff of well edited argument, in the original posting, I spoke of people gladly lighting themselves on fire rather than of people jumping to their deaths. And, incidentally, lemmings do neither.

7:45 AM, November 14, 2009. e-mail from wim_rooijakkers@hetnet.nl:

Hello Dear,

Compliments of the day to you.I am Miss Happy sam ,28 years old single.I am 5ft.8inches,my weight is 60kg,black hair with brown eyes and fair in complexion.

I am an African decent,originally from Liberia, but presently located in another country known as Senegal in the West Coast of Africa.I am living as political assylum due to the political situations in my country which resulted to the death of my parents and living nobody behind me.

I am the only one left,living in the refugee camp here in senegal.i am seeking for partner.if you are interested kindly contact me with your details about you

E-mail h_happy12@yahoo.ca

Happy

11:36 PM, November 15, 2009. e-mail from wim_rooijakkers@hetnet.nl:

Complement of the day,

Thank you for reading my mail. i am Mrs. Yonghong Wan a staff of Standard Chartered Bank attached in Private Banking services here in Hong Kong. I am contacting you concerning a customer and, an investment placed under our banks management 4 years ago, I contacted you independently of our investigation and no one is informed of this communication and I would like to intimate you with certain facts that I believe would be of interest to you.

My proposal;

I am prepared to place you in a position to instruct the finance firm to release the deposit to you as the closest surviving relation. Upon receipt of the deposit, I am prepared to share the money with you 50/50. But on the other hand, you as a foreigner and also with all the necessary legal and official documentations from me and the presiding attorney and also with the authority vested upon me by the original depositor. If you find yourself able to work with me, contact me through this email: yonghongwan211@yahoo.com.hk Please note that, I am a happily married with two kids. Do not betray my confidence. If we can be of one accord, we should plan a meeting, soon.

I await your response.

Sincerely,

Yonghong Wan.

You mention [in the 2007 Freedom Party election platform] how you want public health care and education to be paid for by those who use it, and have a private option for everyone else. How about those who cannot afford either, those who have been born into cyclical poverty through no fault of their own. Now i understand that these people can break the cycle, but isn’t access to health care and education necessary for them to break this cycle. This is a question that still bothers me….What becomes of those who cannot afford access to basic services for survival?

I answered that part of the writer’s letter as follows:

On the matter of health care and education, I offer you the following responses.

1. Ontario did not have a government health insurance monopoly until 1969. It was brought in by Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives. To pay for it, the PCs also introduced a new tax to Ontarians: the Ontario provincial income tax.

   Ontarians actually fought *against* the introduction of the government monopoly: almost everyone had insurance, and most of those who did not paid as they went. In other words, it was not brought in to deal with some sort of health care problem. Rather, it created health care problems.

   Immediately, and annually, the system was flooded by people who – not having to pay – used almost no discretion about whether to use the services of a medical professional. It was perennially “under-funded” as a result.

   Just imagine the “underfunding” of gasoline, where the government to hold a monopoly upon its supply to you. Think about it: People would be filling their yachts with gasoline, taking trips they would not take if they had to pay for the gasoline themselves, et cetera. There would be gasoline “shortages”, because there would be a limit to how much money the government could tax out of your hands and spend upon gasoline. Eventually, the history books and the CBC [i.e., the government-owned and tax-funded national television broadcaster] would be full of re-written history about how horrible it was when some people could not afford gasoline and had to ride their bicycles to work, or walk, or car-pool. To expect anyone to do such things would be considered an “insult”, “degrading”, maybe even “racist”. Undoubtedly, it would be claimed that “fuel is a human right”.

   If that sounds ridiculous, consider that it is a matter of fact that that is precisely what happened as a result of the introduction of socialized medicine to Ontario in 1969. It now consumes over 40% of the Ontario budget: approximately 60 cents of every Ontario tax dollar (note that some of our budget funds are contributed by the federal government from federal tax revenues).

2. No amount of hardship justifies morally the expropriation or enslavement of others. Those who cannot provide for their own survival must rely solely upon the charity – i.e., consensual contributions – of others. Should I lose my legs in an accident, that does not make it morally right for me forcibly to take money from you, or to threaten you with imprisonment by pointing a gun at you and telling you that you will be imprisoned if you do not mow my lawn, bath me, cook my dinner and tuck me into bed.

   In Freedom Party’s view, a government does not require the immoral (only a criminal gang does that). The proper role of government is the opposite: to protect you from those who would forcibly take your money/property, or enslave you. Therefore, the correct political question is not: what becomes of those who cannot afford health care but rather: what becomes of those who can afford health care?

I hope that helps.

Regards,

Paul McKeever
Leader, Freedom Party of Ontario

Today is the fourth anniversary of the publication of the famous 12 cartoons which many Muslims regarded as blasphemous. In response to the publication of those cartoons, many Muslims acted out violently, destroying property and even attempting to murder one of the cartoonists, Kurt Westergaard (who created the famous bomb-in-a-turban cartoon). It is my understanding that, for this reason, International Blasphemy Day was scheduled for this day.

In March of this year, a non-binding resolution was passed by the U.N. [United Nations Organization] General Assembly which calls upon the world to make legal measures to require respect for religion, tolerance for religious beliefs and practices; laws to prohibit the “stereotyping” of “sacred persons” and religions. In particular, it called upon all states to “take all possible measures to promote tolerance and respect for all religions and beliefs”, and it proposes that freedom of speech should be limited so as to protect the reputations of others in respect of religious beliefs. My understanding is that the non-binding resolution adopted by the U.N. foreshadows what several theocratic states hope will become a resolution binding upon all U.N. member states.

Given the nature of this anniversary, and given the efforts of some in the U.N. to restrict your freedom of expression in relation to religion, I would like to speak to you tonight about free speech. In particular, I would like to discuss what the concept “free speech” properly refers to in a free country, and to do so by explaining the purpose it serves. And, given that the U.N. resolution in question concerns alleged “defamation” of religion, I would like to address the nature of defamation as it relates to free speech.

I submit to you that the concept “free speech” cannot be understood properly without knowing the purpose it serves in a human being’s life. Therefore, to know that purpose, one must have a valid definition of the concept “human being”. To that end, we must identify the essential characteristic of a human being; the characteristic that separates human beings from all other organisms.

I submit to you that the defining feature of a human being is not physical, but mental. We are essentially distinguished from the rest of life on earth not by the fact that we have opposable thumbs, but by the fact that we can communicate with one another via symbols. With nothing but sounds or characters, we can communicate to one another virtually any concept. My dog may love me; he may know how to get me to take him for a walk; but he could not write MacBeth even had he the fingers and dexterity to do it. Nor could he solve a simple mathematical problem. In short, human beings are distinguished from the rest of the animal world by our capacity to reason.

Unlike other animals, human beings must reason if they are to survive. They must discover how to make tools, how to produce heat, how to build a shelter, et cetera. In other words: they must determine how to create or otherwise obtain the values that make their survival and happiness possible. And they cannot make those discoveries unless they first make one fundamental decision: the decision to use their rational faculty. The decision to think.

But thinking is not enough. Action is necessary too. A man stranded on an island will die of thirst if he does not, in very short order, determine how to obtain water and food. However, even if he thinks up a workable plan, he will die if he does not act upon the plan.

Thought and action. Those are two things a human being must engage in if any human being is to obtain the values necessary for their survival and happiness. And, to the extent that a person both thinks, and acts upon his own thoughts, his survival and happiness are within his own control. If he chooses not to think, his survival depends upon chance or upon the thinking of others. Similarly, if he chooses not to act, or is prevented from acting, his survival depends upon chance or upon the productive actions of others. In other words, if he either does not think, or does not act, he becomes a dependant.

There are three ways to make a person a dependent. The first is to discourage him from thinking independently and rationally; to make him incompetent to solve the problems the must be solved if he is to obtain the values upon which his life and happiness depends. The second is to take advantage of his trust, and to provide him with falsehoods upon which he will rely, to his own detriment. The third is to coerce him with physical force.

Religion takes advantage of all three techniques.

It starts by discouraging independent, rational thought. Religion tells human beings that they cannot achieve happiness by independent thought. It tells human beings that they must defer the judgment of their own minds, and accept as true that which is asserted in a holy book or by religious leaders. It tells human beings to accept as true not only those arbitrary religious claims that cannot be supported by physical evidence (such as the existence of an all-knowing god), but also those claims which are demonstrably false (such as the claim that there is a conscious entity who pre-existed the existence of anything). In short, religion tells human beings that faith trumps reason and the independent judgment of ones own mind.

Having discouraged independent thought and encouraged unearned trust in the alleged word of an alleged god, religion proceeds to take advantage of that trust. It provides the irrational faithful with a mixture of true, arbitrary, and false beliefs; beliefs not only about the nature of existence, but also about ethics: beliefs about what one must and must not do; about how one must treat one’s fellow man, and why. It often asserts a relatively good afterlife available only to those who zealously accept and follow even the arbitrary and demonstrably false claims. Arguably without exception, religions tell individuals that an all-powerful god exists who commands that one must put the relief of other persons’ needs ahead of ones own happiness. Indeed, many religions add the notion that happiness can be achieved only by making oneself ones brother’s keeper, and by doing without material values. And, even worse, some argue that one has done nothing virtuous if, by sacrificing for others, one experienced some happiness.

Poverty, suffering, sacrifice, death: these are what religion holds up as the good. Pleasure, the production and retention of values, and the rational pursuit of ones own happiness: these are religion’s cardinal sins. Accordingly, religion discourages the actions necessary to produce the values upon which ones own survival and happiness depend. It thereby makes one dependent upon others for ones own survival. It undermines an individual’s competency to provide for his own survival and happiness.

For those who, in the face of religion, refuse to defer; who refuse to replace reason with faith; for those who choose to think independently, and who demand evidence; for those who reject the notion that their own happiness is a sin, and that their only reason for living is to sacrifice themselves; for all such people, religion resorts to technique number three: coercion. In democratic countries, the religions and their adherents can regularly be found to call upon governments to punish those who violate their god’s laws. It calls for the imprisonment or expropriation of those who provide or depict human sexual pleasure; for the imprisonment or expropriation of those who consume, or make it possible to consume, substances that ease our anxieties; for the fine or imprisonment of those who dare to open their retail stores on an alleged holy day, like Christmas, or Easter (or until as recently as 1992 in the province of Ontario, on any Sunday). In theocratic countries, popular support is unnecessary and the full merger of faith and force is complete, crushing reason and personal happiness under its sandal.

In these three ways:

• discouraging independent, rational thought and encouraging faith;

• communicating arbitrary and false claims upon which the faithful will rely; and

• using coercive physical force to prevent people from acting productively upon their own rational thoughts.

religion leaves individuals dependent upon chance and upon the whims of others.

Freedom, properly defined, is control, by ones own mind, over the disposition of ones own values. By “ones own values”, I refer not only to the material things one owns, but also to the actions of ones own body. The role of government, in a free society, is to ensure that you are not deprived of control; to ensure that no person uses dishonesty or force to obviate the need to obtain your consent; to ensure that you are not deprived of the ability to act upon your own rational thoughts; to ensure that you are not prevented from being able to live as an independent, free thinking adult.

When used to deprive someone of control over his life, liberty, or property, the role of physical force is to render the victim’s mind irrelevant. Coercive physical force targets the mind.

When used to deprive someone of control over his life, liberty, or property, the role of false or arbitrary claims is to cause even the most rational mind to err. False and arbitrary claims target the facts of reality.

Control – hence freedom – necessarily implies consent. Agreement procured with false or arbitrary claims is essentially equivalent to agreement procured at the point of a gun: agreement, in such cases, is not consent. In respect of attempts to deprive someone of control over his life, liberty or property, the effect of false or arbitrary claims is the same as the effect of coercive physical force: to obviate consent.

It is for this reason that government rightly imposes and enforces laws against fraud. The defrauder falsely claims to have control over a value that, in reality, he lacks; he misrepresents the facts of reality so that his victim will draw an erroneous conclusion that would not, otherwise, have been drawn. He thereby causes his victim to agree to transfer control of something (typically property) to the fraudster without ever receiving control of the promised value in exchange. The law rightly responds to the making of such false claims by forcing the fraudster to compensate his victim or otherwise pay for the loss his false claims allowed him to cause.

For the same reason, government rightly imposes and enforces laws against defamation. The defamer falsely claims another person to lack a value (e.g., skill in his trade), or to have a disvalue (e.g., an history of criminal conduct); he misrepresents the facts of reality so that others will draw an erroneous conclusion about his intended victim. He thereby may deprive the victim of those values – whether material (e.g., lucrative contracts from clients) or spiritual (e.g., the admiration of another person) – that the victim has or would otherwise have obtained. When such losses occur as a result of a defamation, the law rightly punishes the making of such false claims by forcing the defamer to compensate his victim or otherwise pay for the loss his words allowed him to cause.

“Freedom of speech” – a law prohibiting government from punishing the expression of ideas, beliefs, et cetera – would be an oxymoron were it to imply that government cannot outlaw speech calculated to obviate consent and thereby to deprive a person of control over their own life, liberty or property. Ask yourself: how would “freedom of speech” be the result of a “freedom of speech” law preventing the government from taking any action against a person who, by means of fraud, obtains copyright in an author’s work so as to prevent the printing and distribution of the work; so as to prevent the author’s words from reaching any audience?

Individual freedom – control over ones own life, liberty and property – is the very thing that constitutional laws guaranteeing freedom of speech are intended to defend. It is the only thing a law guaranteeing free speech logically can defend. That redundancy is why, in the final analysis of the concept “freedom of speech”, the words “of speech” are non-essential and, ultimately, dispensable.

Freedom of speech laws rightly prevent governments from outlawing speech that does not deprive an individual of control over his own life, liberty or property; that does not deny anyone his freedom.

And so, let us consider the claim that “defamation” of religion should be outlawed. I submit that it is not possible to defame religion for one reason: truth is a defence. It is true that religion requires one to accept false or arbitrary claims on faith. It is true that accepting false or arbitrary claims undermines ones ability to produce the values upon which ones own survival and happiness depend. It is, for that reason, true that religion is, in that sense, anti-freedom; that it stands in opposition to the rational and productive thought and action upon which ones own happiness depends. And, were our governments to resort to force to prevent us from saying so, our governments would, in effect, be outlawing reason, rational action, and personal happiness. It would be facilitating religions efforts to make us all mindless, dependent, miserable, suffering slaves.

I therefore conclude that we need no law prohibiting the defamation of religion. No law can prohibit the impossible.

Medicare spending from now until 2032 will be 235% of economic growth. By 2040, Medicare will be spending about 10% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product annually, and the annual deficits of the United States will total some 20% of the total Gross Domestic Product.

The bottom line is this: mandated fiscal entitlements, projected into the future, are over 52,000 billion dollars. That will equal 90% of all household wealth in the U.S., and will place a burden of over 450 thousand dollars on every household in the land. This is almost ten times the present median household income level.

Lewis quite rightly submits that:

A nation that violates the rights of its citizens cannot, in the long run, escape the consequences of its moral failure. When a nation with the unique strength of the United States does so systematically and over decades, the results must necessarily be catastrophic. The dire economic forecast of David Walker illustrates the connection between the moral and the practical. To regain our economic viability we must regain our moral viability.

However, many U.S. citizens might not be aware that, in Canada, we’ve seen the same kinds of predictions for years. Here, it has turned out that there is another variable that intervenes and prevents spending from reaching most or more-than-all of household income: rationing. Yes, taxes in Canada are crushing; and yes, the single largest expenditure is socialized health care; and yes, it is immoral. However, there is more to the horror than the fiscal catastrophe. There is also a health care catastrophe.

Under Canada’s constitution, only provincial legislatures (Canada’s analogue to state legislatures in the USA) have the authority to make laws concerning health care. Since the 1960s, each Canadian province has instituted tax funding for most health care services, and most have banned private health insurance and patient-pay arrangements.

In 2005, in the case of Chaoulli v. Quebec (Attorney General), [2005] 1 S.C.R. 791, 2005 SCC 35, the Supreme Court of Canada found that the rationing of health care in the Province of Quebec was resulting in extremely long waiting lists. Referring to various studies and to the evidence of physicians, two members of the majority of the court wrote:

Delays in the public system are widespread and have serious, sometimes grave, consequences. There was no dispute that there is a waiting list for cardiovascular surgery for life-threatening problems…a person with coronary disease is [translation] “sitting on a bomb” and can die at any moment…patients die while on waiting lists…Inevitably, where patients have life-threatening conditions, some will die because of undue delay in awaiting surgery.

The same applies to other health problems. In a study of 200 subjects aged 65 and older with hip fractures, the relationship between pre-operative delay and post-operative complications and risk of death was examined. While the study found no relationship between pre-operative delay and post-operative complications, it concluded that the risk of death within six months after surgery increased significantly, by 5 percent, with the length of pre-operative delay…
[...]
the one-year delay commonly incurred by patients requiring ligament reconstruction surgery increases the risk that their injuries will become irreparable…95 percent of patients in Canada wait well over a year, and many two years, for knee replacements…the harm suffered by patients awaiting replacement knees and hips is significant. Even though death may not be an issue for them, these patients “are in pain”, “would not go a day without discomfort” and are “limited in their ability to get around”, some being confined to wheelchairs or house bound…over one in five Canadians who needed health care for themselves or a family member in 2001 encountered some form of difficulty, from getting an appointment to experiencing lengthy waiting times…Thirty-seven percent of those patients reported pain…In addition to threatening the life and the physical security of the person, waiting for critical care may have significant adverse psychological effects…Studies confirm that patients with serious illnesses often experience significant anxiety and depression while on waiting lists. A 2001 study concluded that roughly 18 percent of the estimated five million people who visited specialists for a new illness or condition reported that waiting for care adversely affected their lives. The majority suffered worry, anxiety or stress as a result.

Apologizing, in effect, for the horrors of socialized medicine, two members of the minority of the court, who were opposed to striking down Quebec’s ban on private health insurance in order to preserve the tax-funded “system” (note: preserve not the patient, but the system), wrote:

Waiting times are not only found in public systems. They are found in all health care systems, be they single-tier private, single-tier public, or the various forms of two-tier public/private …Waiting times in Canada are not exceptional…The consequence of a quasi-unlimited demand for health care coupled with limited resources, be they public or private, is to ration services. As noted by the Arpin Report, Constats et recommandations sur les pistes à explorer: Synthèse, at p. 37:

[translation] In any health care system, be it public or private, there is an ongoing effort to strike the proper balance. . . . For a public system like our own, waiting lists, insofar as priority is given to urgent cases, do not in themselves represent a flaw in the system. They are the inevitable result of a public system that can consequently offer universal access to health services within the limits of sustainable public spending. Thus, to a certain extent, they play a necessary role.

The expert witnesses at trial agreed that waiting lists are inevitable…The only alternative is to have a substantially overbuilt health care system with idle capacity…This is not a financially feasible option, in the public or private sector.

Obviously, the underlying but unstated moral assumption made by the minority is that the same nature and degree of health care must be provided to every patient. But for that assumption, the falsity of their conclusion about financial feasibility would be more obvious.

Luckily for those who are or will be sick and dying in Quebec, a majority of the court concluded that because the government monopoly could not provide health care well enough, Quebec’s law banning private health insurance was unconstitutional.

In response to the decision, socialist governments in other provinces have taken steps to fast-track a short-list of common procedures (e.g., hip replacement) having waiting lists that have most attracted the attention of the media, and the outrage of the public. Their aim is to contrive data for future court challenges to their own government health care monopolies. Specifically, they aim to create evidence to make it look as though rationing leads to suffering and unnecessary death in Quebec, but rationing is a smashing success in their own provinces. They hope, in that way, to have the courts render different decisions with respect to their respective bans on private health insurance. But, all the while, people continue to suffer and die because health care in Canada is rationed. Faster access to hip replacement surgery necessarily comes at the cost of slower access to other procedures.

The lesson from Canada should be this. Do not be led to believe that the system will go bankrupt. Keep in mind that, to avoid bankruptcy, the socialists will simply let an increasing number of people suffer and die.

The guiding philosophical commitment of socialist governments with respect to socialized medicine is, in effect: So long as no person is permitted to use his own money to avoid the suffering and death to which less wealthy people are subjected, the system is just. As the minority of the Supreme Court of Canada put it under the ominously dictatorial subheading “Who Should Be Allowed to Jump the Queue?” (emphasis added):

In a public system founded on the values of equity, solidarity and collective responsibility, rationing occurs on the basis of clinical need rather than wealth and social status.

and:

Quebec does not want people who are uninsurable to be left behind. To accomplish this objective endorsed by the Canada Health Act, Quebec seeks to discourage the growth of private-sector delivery of “insured” services based on wealth and insurability.

As Lewis rightly submits, economic catastrophe is evidence of the impracticality of altruism, collectivism, and socialist health care, but the essential problem is moral, not economic. The monstrous and unnecessary suffering and death imposed by socialized medicine in Canada provide additional evidence of the impracticality of the altruism that underlies socialized medicine. So long as citizens believe that it is immoral to put ones own happiness before the alleviation of other individuals’ needs, economic catastrophe will be just one of the many horrors resulting from socialized medicine in the USA.

Episode one is a scene in which Frank hires Eddie. Eddie lacks any strengths or skills, save one: “getting out of stuff”. For Frank’s purposes, this makes Eddie the ideal choice to head up product development.

In episode two, Frank reveals himself to be the poster boy of the Green (i.e., Völkisch) movement. He calls his staff together and gives them a speech in which he condemns the automobile – which he holds up as a model of constant innovation – as a “menace to society”. Unwittingly rehashing Malthus, Hitler, and Erlich, Frank asserts that:

Our reckless pursuit of progress is absurd. Our economic structure is reliant on one thing: an endless supply of resources. And you combine that with population growth and, well, you’ve just got global foolishness.

In the face of all of this change, Frank is certain that “What you can’t deny is that we are doing something right: nothing”. Hoping that his product development staff will, essentially, stop working, he encourages them to spend their time forming groups and committees, explaining that “It’s togetherness, working as one, merging our collective thoughts that will lead to…underachievement”. We thereby learn that, though Frank is anti-progress, he knows exactly what sort of thinking and activity stifles progress.

In episode three, Eddie is feeling blue because, as head of product development, he has done nothing. Frank consoles Eddie with a mini-speech about the alleged pointlessness of progress, saying that man learned nothing from going to the moon.

In episode four, Frank holds performance reviews of his employees. He praises Rodney as an “inspiration to sustainability”: Rodney has made no innovations to Shredded Wheat in his 55 years of employment with the company, so it’s bonus-time for him, plus a 50 year contract at double his salary.

Next up, June: a liberal young woman armed with demographic information about the typical Shredded Wheat consumer, whom she names “John”. June thinks the company should run commercials to scare people about heart disease, but follow each such commercial with a Shredded Wheat commercial in which an actor, playing a doctor, tells the viewer that Shredded Wheat is good for your heart. Frank calls in Eddie and introduces June as “a go-getter, she’s trouble”. Franks plan: keep June distracted, by a love affair with Eddie, from her plan to grow the company. Frank wants only “sustainability”.

In the concluding episode, June tells Frank that times have changed and that it is time to name the cereal: “Shwweeeaat”. Her female demographic – codenamed Jill – wants to eat Shredded Wheat but wants a little variety to “spice up her life”. June says “the advertising agency has some great ideas”. Frank hits the roof, blaming advertising for peoples’ desire to buy things they cannot afford, to impress others, only to despair that such purchases did not result in the happiness they were trying to buy. Frank explains that, in some countries, affluence is “two cows and a really big wife” whereas in our society, advertising has caused people to make skinniness (“malnourishment”) a goal.

The implicit message of the Palace Of Light micro-series is:

Frank may appear to be a dummy, but he makes more sense than the new-age advertising girl, June. Maybe, your laziness and incompetence, dear consumer, are not so bad after all. Maybe all the harm in the world is done by the innovators. Maybe innovation does not make one happy. Maybe we should all be happy with a ‘sustainable’, unchanging, agrarian life in which there is no car, no space travel, no commercial advertisement, and no business growth. Maybe, just maybe, one can not achieve more happiness than is achieved by merely having two cows and a fat wife. Maybe, just maybe, your life is not pathetic after all. Maybe the only thing you really need is something as wisely unambitious and effortless as yourself: Post Shredded Wheat.

It is a commercial exceptionally well-suited to society today. To a society comprised largely of people educated to believe that the world is too complex and chaotic to understand, Frank essentially says to the consumer: “nobody else understands reality either, so you do not have to feel bad about your ignorance”. To consumers who have tried in vain to achieve happiness buy borrowing money to buy objects that they think will earn them the respect of others, we can easily infer from Frank’s message that the consumer should not feel bad about thinking so little, or about being so stupid because: “Rational efforts to pursue happiness through the creation of new values are doomed to failure, such that the pursued values are actually disvalues, and such that rationality is actually a vice”. In other words: “Wise are the brain dead, so feel good about your wisdom, dear consumer”. The Palace Of Light story is a well-structured “there there” and hug for a society almost completely lacking in competence and self-esteem; for a society that, as a result, has embraced the anti-reality, anti-reason, pro-altruism, pro-collectivism movements of the day (most notably at present, environmentalism).

However, those committed to reality, reason, self, and individualism should be cautious in their evaluation Frank. There is a half-truth to Frank’s message about innovation: sometimes, it results in nothing of value. Innovation is not per se (i.e., intrinsically) good. Immanuel Kant was an innovator, for example, though his philosophical rebellion against man’s ability to know the nature of reality and against rational egoism laid the groundwork for murderous governments in the industrialized European and Asian countries of the world in the 20th century.

Frank and June – presumably intended to be the protagonist and antagonist, respectively, in the Palace of Light micro-series – in reality present the viewer with the false dichotomy presented to us in society today. Frank’s flaw is his moral intrinsicism. As author/philosopher Ayn Rand explained it, moral intrinsicism holds that:

…good is inherent in certain things or actions as such, regardless of their context and consequences, regardless of any benefit or injury they may cause to the actors and subjects involved. It is a theory that divorces the concept of “good” from beneficiaries, and the concept of “value” from valuer and purpose—claiming that the good is good in, by, and of itself. (from Ayn Rand’s essay “What is Capitalism?”, which appears at Chapter 1 of her book Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal).

Frank cares not whether a person lives 100 miles from the nearest hospital, or whether he lives next door to one: in either case, the car – which could get him to the hospital in time to save his life – is a “menace to society”. In determining whether something is a value, he refuses to ask “Of value to whom, and for what purpose?”. A car is simply evil, no matter who you are, no matter what your needs, values, or goals may be. To Frank, evil is a metaphysical quality, like hardness, colour, or sweetness. He disregards the customer’s needs/wants, and asserts that Shredded Wheat just is a value, to everyone, period…presumably, even to a person with gluten intolerance.

June’s flaw is her moral subjectivism. Rand explained that:

The subjectivist theory holds that the good bears no relation to the facts of reality, that it is a product of a man’s consciousness, created by his feelings, desires, “intuitions,” or whims, and that it is merely an “arbitrary postulate” or an “emotional commitment.”

June sees no reason to care about what product she is selling at all, which is why she is so excited about changing the name of the product from something descriptive (“shredded wheat”) to something non-descriptive: “Shwweeeaat”. Shwweeeaat might be a shoe, rat poison, or a rocket to the moon: it does not matter to her because she believes the value of something is entirely determined by whim, independent of the facts of reality.

The Frank/June dichotomy – the intrinsicism/subjectivism dichotomy – is false because both Frank and June determine values in a way that disregards any relation between the facts of reality and the mind of the valuer. Rand’s Objectivist theory of value holds that:

…the good is neither an attribute of “things in themselves” nor of man’s emotional states, but an evaluation of the facts of reality by man’s consciousness according to a rational standard of value. (Rational, in this context, means: derived from the facts of reality and validated by a process of reason.) The objective theory holds that the good is an aspect of reality in relation to man — and that it must be discovered, not invented, by man. Fundamental to an objective theory of values is the question: Of value to whom and for what? An objective theory does not permit context-dropping or “concept-stealing”; it does not permit the separation of “value” from “purpose,” of the good from beneficiaries, and of man’s actions from reason.

By the Objectivist theory of value, Frank is right to condemn June’s attempt to disregard reality; to present the consumer with a misleading product name, a phony doctor, and a phony fear. By the same theory, June is right to propose that the mind of the consumer ought not to be disregarded when communicating to the public why the product might be a value to them. That is why there seems to be a grain of truth or wisdom to what each of them say. Yet Frank and June are both wrong in the same way: both sever reality from mind in process of value-determination. Their ultimate product is: Shredded Ethics.

Let us hope that Post adds some episodes to its Palace of Light series; episodes that will justify the name of the series. Perhaps both Frank and June could find themselves out of a job, replaced with a guy who does not separate the wheat from the chaff; an innovator whose most important innovation is to help his staff, and the consumer, understand that the value is in the two together: whole wheat. John Malt, anybody?

Given the apparent role of TPM in co-ordinating blogging efforts on the left, I thought it worth my time to bring attention to one article – one talking point, if you will – that sprung up on the TPM web site a few hours ago. Titled “Rand/Thrasymachus, Marx, and Dostoyevsky“, I thought perhaps I might find in the article something of value. Instead, the article’s author, who goes only by the name Nebton, provides the reader with misrepresentation after misrepresentation in an effort to support one talking point: that Ayn Rand’s ethical philosophy (rational egoism) is just a rehash of philosophy from ancient times. Implied: don’t bother reading Ayn Rand when considering the nature and causes of the current economic crisis.

To be fair to Nebton, a few things should be acknowledged. Nietzsche, before Rand, provided an history of morality in which morality, thousands of years ago, was inverted. That which used to be considered a virtue was condemned as a vice, and that which had been considered a vice was praised as a virtue. Pursuant to the inversion, the strong, the knowledgeable, and the wealthy were considered to be the most vicious, whereas the weak, the ignorant, and the poor were considered most virtuous. It was an easy sell, in some ways, because it takes no effort to be weak, ignorant and poor and because whereas under the old ethics such people would feel guilty about their situation, the newly-inverted ethics allowed them to feel superior to the strong, knowledgeable, and rich. That ethics – the ethics that treats the economically successful as those who “owe society” or who must “give something back to society” – remains dominant today. It is still easier to remain weak, ignorant and poor and to take values from the ‘sinners’ who produce them than it is to improve oneself and create values for oneself. Altruism, in short, remains a popular rationalization for that which the ancients considered vicious.

However, Nietzsche made a horrible mistake. He equated altruism with morality and, having done so, proceeded to reject morality altogether as something that is merely a weapon used by clerics to overthrow the otherwise strong, intelligent, prosperous and powerful, and thereby to rise to power. In other words, he threw the baby (ethics) out with the bathwater (altruism). He thereby contributed to the current wave of moral subjectivism that haunts our educational and governmental institutions. And, by denying the propriety of ethics, Nietzsche actually failed to oppose, meaningfully or effectively, the de facto altruism inherent of most of the purportedly amoral (e.g., “pragmatic”) acts committed in society today.

Ayn Rand did not make Nietzsche’s mistake. Her message was not that man must get “beyond good and evil”, but that man must properly identify, by Objective (hence rational) means, what is good and virtuous on the one hand, and what is evil and vicious on the other, and that – to live life as a Man on this earth – a human being must seek the good by virtuous means. Unlike Nietzsche, Rand’s philosophy effectively condemns not only altruistic philosophy, but also altruistic acts that are promoted or carried out by people who claim such acts to be amoral. Hence, nobody condemned altruism more – and more effectively – than Rand, yet it could equally be said that nobody praised ethics to the degree she did.

I juxtapose Nietzsche and Rand in this way for a reason. Too often, those who condemn Rand’s philosophy pass off Nietzsche’s arguments (or inferences drawn from them) as though they were Rand’s; they falsely equate Nietzsche’s philosophy with Objectivism. They then proceed to condemn attempts by the strong and intelligent to obtain wealth and power by means of coercive physical force and fraud. There is nothing wrong with that: attempts to obtain values by such vicious means are indeed efforts that are properly condemned. However, what such authors either fail to appreciate, or refuse to be honest about, is that Rand’s philosophy – unlike Nietzsche’s – condemns such actions as vices, not as virtues, and it does so whether the person engaging in such actions is strong or weak, intelligent or moronic, rich or poor.

In that light, let us observe what Nebton has done in his essay. Nebton writes:

Ayn Rand’s “selfishness as a virtue” is not a new idea. The Greek philosopher Thrasymachus voiced a similar idea, commonly translated as “injustice is virtue”.

He then proceeds to provide us with a description of Thrasymachus’ philosophy by quoting thusly from a text on the history of philosophy:

But far from saying that by nature all men are equal, they held that on the contrary men, like beasts, are naturally unequal, and what is natural is for every man to get what he can by any means. Law, morality, fair play, everything that the Greek summed up in the notion of “justice,” is a conventional artificial obstacle that a clever man will circumvent-and be a better man, a more excellent, “virtuous” man, for doing it. “Injustice is virtue.”

Clearly, this quotation describes a line of thought that runs contrary to Rand – who expressly praised justice as a virtue – but that arguably is consistent with Nietzsche. Rand explicitly rejected the notion that it is natural for man to get what he can by any means: man’s nature, she argued, required him to obtain values only by rational means, hence without recourse to coercive physical force and dishonesty. Morality was not, to Rand, an “obstacle” to be overcome: such a line of argument brings to mind not Rand’s John Galt, but Nietzsche’s Overman/Superman. Rand, to the contrary, regarded ethics as something without which man cannot identify and effectively pursue the values upon which his survival and happiness depend.

Nebton concludes:

…I do want to stress that her ideas weren’t original…

Note that, to that point in Nebton’s essay, he has not provided the reader with a correct representation of Rand’s philosophy at all. Instead, he has stated that the ideas set out in the passage he quotes from an history book are “a similar idea” to Rand’s. As I explain above, the ideas quoted in that passage are not only dissimilar to Rand’s philosophy, but are diametrically opposed to it.

…and, in my opinion, they’re flawed because of assumptions she makes about human nature…

Which assumptions? Nebton does not say. How are they flawed? Nebton offers us silence. But that does not stop him from making this ridiculous comparison:

Ayn Rand’s theories therefore remind me very much of Karl Marx’s. In my opinion, he also made untenable assumptions about human nature…

Which assumptions did Marx make that were “untenable”? Nebton does not say (which is not to imply that Marx did not make untenable assumptions).

Having offered us unsupported conclusions about others’ assumptions about human nature, Nebton then endeavors to set us all straight:

However, one author I think had a much better grasp of human nature, despite preceding them both, is Fyodor Dostoyevsky. In Notes From Underground, he makes the excellent observation that if some genius were to discover a set of scientific principles that would make each of us perfectly happy (an idea that was inspired by reading Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species), we would not follow these principles, because we cannot be truly happy following any rules. Although perhaps not rigorous from a logician’s perspective, he effectively makes an argument reductio ad absurdum that no set of rules will ever make us happy, and that’s true whether it’s completely free-market capitalism, Marxism, or a semi-regulated semi-free-market capitalism with quasi-socialistic safety nets thrown in (or however you want to describe our current system).

If it is true that Dostoyevsky “effectively makes” such an argument, Nebton has decidedly failed to share with us how such an argument is effective. He offers us as little substantiation for his praise of Dostoyevsky as he offers for his condemnation of Rand and of Marx. However, the more ridiculous part of his writing follows:

Of course, one could argue that neither Rand nor Marx were interested in happiness, but were pursuing other goals for us, such as freedom.

If there is any one sentence in Nebton’s essay that proves he has not read a single word written by Rand, that just might be it. Rand’s position was that ones own happiness is ones highest purpose in life. Freedom – freedom from non-consensual deprivations of ones own life, liberty and property – she explained, was simply the condition necessary for one successfully to pursue that happiness. Ethics, Rand explained, is what makes freedom a value: ethics precedes such political concerns in the logical hierarchy of knowledge.

Nebton then turns to the utterly silly, equating Objectivism with anarchism and Nietzsche’s philosophy:

Furthermore, Rand’s disciples might argue that their Way is one of No Rules, just as many an atheist will argue that their Way is one of No Beliefs….As you can probably guess, I don’t buy into the “No Rules” argument as the strongest will always make rules (refer back to Thrasymachus).

Rand was an opponent of anarchism. Her “way” was not “no rules”, but rational ethics, and a government that removes barriers to ethical (hence ruleful) conduct by making and enforcing rational laws.

I fully suspect that, with Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged” smashing all previous sales records and placing itself in Amazon’s #1 spot in recent months, we will see stepped-up efforts on the left to suggest to prospective readers of the novel: “Move on people, there’s nothing interesting to see here”. A hint to the collectivists engaged in such efforts to diminish Rand’s growing popularity and influence: if you want to maintain a shred of credibility, you might want actually to read what Rand wrote before attempting to trash it. Feeble efforts like Nebton’s will only speed up the public’s acknowledgment of the fact that the collectivists lack a logical argument to defeat Rand’s philosophy.

I have insufficient knowledge of Huemer to judge him personally. I commend him for his willingness to take on at least one graduate student whom he knows to be an Objectivist, thereby facilitating the possible entry into academia of more much-needed Objectivist thinkers, writers, and teachers. I commend him for taking Rand’s work seriously enough to write about it, and to debate well-known Objectivists about it: his lessers continue to pretend that her work is not worthy of comment or criticism. However, I do not commend him for his essay, “Critique of ‘The Objectivist Ethics’ “. In it, Huemer repeatedly misrepresents the statements or arguments in TOE, and then sets out to knock down the misrepresentations he has authored.