• • In the War of the Billboards, Islamophobe Pamela Gellar is Winning 
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Capitalism  | It’s always struck me as incredibly hypocritical for a self-proclaimed Randian Objectivist to exploit public policy she is supposedly against, and to sue municipalities to secure those ill-gotten privileges, to achieve objectives she could never conceivably accomplish in the free market world libertarians and Objectivists advocate.      View blog reactions

• • Pam Geller is winning the billboard war 
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Capitalism  | There is no way to legally prevent people from misusing public property in ways we would not allow on private property. It’s always struck me as incredibly hypocritical for a self-proclaimed Randian Objectivist to exploit public policy she is supposedly against, and to sue municipalities to secure those ill-gotten privileges, to achieve objectives she could never conceivably accomplish in the free market world libertarians and Objectivists advocate.      View blog reactions

• • Silver Circle: Inspiring Heroism 
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Individualism  | The Silver Circle Rebels are an all together different type of hero. They have no super powers, and neither are they the pillars of infallible virtue we see in Ayn Rand’s writing. They are human in their flaws, which makes their standard of heroism attainable by readers. They are also not isolated in their heroism, but part of a vast and varied support structure that makes their activism possible.      View blog reactions

• • • Randian Irony at the ICNA dinner 
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Atheism  |Atlas Shrugged  |The Virtue of Selfishness  |Egoism  |Image  | I’ve never written about Ayn Rand before. I have plenty of problems with her ideas, but she tackled a neigh insurmountable philosophical task. She tried to root human ethics in something objective, specifically human survival, which I find intellectually riveting. My problem is when she is mischaracterized, not when she’s disagreed with. So, I think a well-deserved deference to her intellect warrants at least a brief explanation of what “selfish” means in the Objectivist ethic.      View blog reactions

• • Marketing Voluntaryism 
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I chose to go with the golden rule because it gives the laymen something that is both familiar and difficult to reject. I realize this may be somewhat controversial to those Voluntaryists with Objectivist leanings who rightfully point out that the Golden Rule is an imperfect formulation of the ideal. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is terrible advice to give to a masochist, and it would better be expressed as “Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you.” None the less, its widespread familiarity as an ethical maxim outweighs its minor technical imperfections in my mind.      View blog reactions