You Keep Asking, Now We Answer: Freedom Party versus Libertarian Party

The word “libertarian” is used in both a formal sense and an informal sense. When a socialist Liberal politician exclaims that the state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation, he is called a civil “libertarian”. When a theocratic Conservative politician calls for a reduction in taxes, he too is called a “libertarian”. And when an “anarcho-capitalist” economist calls for the elimination of government, he is called a “libertarian”. So what does the word actually mean? Read more

Canada, Leonard Peikoff, Iran, and Collectivism

On October 12, 2001, Canadian-born philosophy professor and author Dr. Leonard Peikoff (author of the recently released book “The DIM Hypothesis: Why the Lights of the West are Going Out“) appeared on Bill O’Reilly’s political talk show. The appearance of course made its way onto YouTube, where the video has been viewed over 47,000 times, and 1452 comments have been made in response to it. Especially since being posted to YouTube, Dr. Peikoff’s views about the USA bombing or otherwise taking military action in Iran have often drawn the allegation – especially from libertarians, but not from Objectivists – that Dr. Peikoff, or Objectivism itself, is somehow collectivist in respect of war. The latest such criticism occurred on my own facebook wall. Accordingly, I take it upon myself to demonstrate that such allegations are false. Read more

Advice for Politically-Active Objectivists When Dealing with the Media/Public

A fellow Objectivist with not too much experience speaking with the media asked for a few pointers. I replied as follows.

I suppose the most important thing is to speak in steak-and-potatoes terms. Abstractions that are well understood by Objectivists often lack a conscious connection to the concretes in a non-Objectivist’s life.

There are some others that come immediately to mind: Read more

Red Alert!

{The following is the text of a speech given by Freedom Party of Ontario leader Paul McKeever to attendees of the party’s “Red Alert” Dinner on April 21, 2012, at the Primrose Hotel, Toronto, Ontario Canada}

Ladies and Gentlemen,

If there is one thing all of the news and speculation about Ontario’s 2012 budget has made clear, it is this: we, in Ontario, are at war. It is a civil war being fought among the millions who call Ontario home, but it has only two sides. As in any war, both sides want what will make them happy, but the two sides differ both in what they mean by happy, and in what they are prepared to do to obtain the happiness they want. Read more

"Bully": the new "Nazi"

You are a bully if you say that you disagree with this article…or if you don’t read it at all. But don’t worry, I’m a bully too if what I’ve written here offends you. At least those are implications of the new meaning being given to the word “bully” by today’s reds.

Truths and falsehoods are said about people every day and, every day, people are praised or condemned. Until recently, such statements did not constitute “bullying” unless they were false or vicious. The person who was spreading the falsehood that Sarah “has cooties” was bullying Sarah because it was dishonest and, therefore, vicious. Spreading a falsehood that John’s genetic make-up makes him stupid or dishonest was bullying, because it was false and, therefore, vicious.

However, over the last few years, the Reds have been attempting to destroy that distinction. They now assert that bullying does not have to involve the false or the vicious. Bullying, the reds now imply, includes any comment that someone does not want to hear or does not want others to hear. Read more

Marc Emery: Fresh From Prison, Focused, and Intellectually Lethal

When a government imprisons the advocate of individual freedom for disobeying a tyrannical law, does the advocate emerge from prison broken, or more powerful? A recently-discovered cassette tape audio recording just released online from the archives of the Freedom Party of Ontario suggests the latter, especially if the advocate in question is Canadian activist Marc Emery. (Click here to listen now) Read more

Flipping the Coyne on Abortion: Why Canada's MPs Should Vote Against Motion No. 312

There are things that a government does not debate. Whether to be a government or an organized criminal gang is one of them. For that reason Andrew Coyne is simply wrong to submit, as he has in the National Post, that the idea that our Parliamentarians cannot debate abortion “is unworthy of a democratic country”. Read more

Quick Note to Objectivists on Participation in the Electoral Process

A well known Objectivist, and one I greatly admire, recently commented on his facebook fanpage that:

This Repub field and the results from Iowa just prove that it’s still much too early for politics. Lots of educational work still to do…

It was an echo of a comment expressed by Ayn Rand shortly after the failure of the Goldwater campaign in the 1964 presidential election, and that sentiment got a few nods from the fanpage’s presumably Objectivist fans. That is not unexpected: many Objectivists, on the basis of what Rand wrote, and on the basis of what they think she meant by it, routinely state that “it’s too early” for participation in politics, or that “it’s earlier than you think”.

As I see it, Rand did not intend that Objectivists vacate participation in electoral or party politics, and I find it a galling cop-out when Objectivists poo poo any invitation to get involved in electoral politics. The usual response is that now is the time for education, as though education and electoral politics were mutually exclusive exercises, and as though most Objectivists are actually involving themselves in teaching in lieu of political action. The truth, for perhaps 99% of Objectivists, is that they are not involved in either. Too many, in a manner not unlike the libertarians, are in practice just curling up in a ball, navel gazing about ideal societies, re-reading Atlas Shrugged, and moaning “what a pity”. Well, something’s a pity, alright.

When time permits, I intend to write a more detailed piece about what Rand wrote, and what she meant by it, in context. In the interim, I below reproduce my response to the Objectivist gentleman’s recent facebook comment. I’ll just add that his comment was no more qualified or detailed than the quotation of it I make above. Accordingly, I cannot know, from that comment alone, whether or not he was implying that Objectivists should not participate in electoral politics. My response is less a response to his views on the subject, and more a response to those Objectivists who would take his statement to be confirmation that they can and should continue to remain uninvolved in electoral politics. And now, without further ado, my reply: Read more

Ayn Rand's Finest Condemnation of Libertarianism

Over the years, I have read several compilations of Ayn Rand quotations concerning libertarianism. For the first time today, I was able to listen to Ayn Rand’s the Questions and Answers following her April 11, 1976 speech at the Ford Hall Forum, titled “The Moral Factor”. Her answer there was arguably the most succinct and essential statement of her views on why libertarianism deserves to be condemned. Read more

Multiculturalism, Islam, and Censorship (was: Why Lars Hedegaard Is Being Tried)

Lars Hedegaard is an author and founder of the Free Press Society in Denmark. Commencing January 24, 2011, he will be tried under Denmark’s law against the expression of “hate speech” for having stated that Muslim families “…rape their own children” and for thereby expressing contempt for a group defined by its faith (note: contrary to ignorant opinion, “Muslim” is a reference to ones religious beliefs, not to ones genetic make-up). Hedegaard has since explained that he did not intend to imply that all Muslim families engage in such conduct. Indeed, Hedegaard and all but the most ignorant of individuals take it as a given that rape does not happen in all Muslim families. And, clearly, neither Hedegaard nor any except the most unjust in society think it right morally to condemn a family for a crime that none of its members have committed. Yet, as insulting and offensive as Hedegaard’s statement was to people who did not give Hedegaard the benefit of the doubt, the fact of the matter is that Hedegaard’s punishment is not truly sought because he expressed a falsehood, offended Muslims, or turned some people against Muslims. His punishment is sought because he dared to think and judge for himself. By doing so, he – wittingly or unwittingly – attacked the foundations of collectivism. Read more

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