• • The Civilized Man vs. the MTA Savages 
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MTA official Jeremy Soffin’s e-mail on September 21 claims that they “don’t censor based on opinion” and have “run one of each” -- that is, one anti-Israel ad and one pro-Israel ad. But my AFDI ad, which quotes Ayn Rand -- “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man.” -- was not acceptable because it “aims to demean and this isn’t okay.”  

• The Mask is Off 
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Never mind that [Mitt Romney’s] biggest qualification is that he is a businessman. So is George Soros. Pretty much the same kind of business, too. Woe on to anyone who is a threat to the status quo that challenges him, though. They will be attacked with a fervor never unleashed on a Democratic opponent. Now why is that? As always, money and power. And, as Ayn Rand told us, the biggest pile of either resides in Washington, DC.  

• Ron Paul’s Successful Brand Strategy 
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Paul’s creation story begins with a career decision every bit as dramatic as Obama’s choice to “organize black folks” in Chicago “for change.” The young physician decided to enter politics on the same day that President Richard Nixon “closed the gold window,” a policy Paul believed would turn “money of value” into “political money.” Informed by Ayn Rand and the Austrian School of Economics, Paul began to unwaveringly preach the libertarian message.  

• • In Defense of Libertarians 
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Inaccurate  | Goldwater’s willingness to be, for lack of a better phrase, “wrong for the right reasons” earned him an endorsement from Ayn Rand -- who, in spite of her legacy of being the matriarch of modern libertarianism, rejected the Libertarian Party for many of the same reasons I do. Among them, there is the consideration that many of the party’s platforms focus on protecting a singular view of what choices freedom should allow, rather than protecting the individual liberty of being able to decide that for oneself.  

• • To Get Ron Paul’s Insanity, You Have To Understand Libertarianism 
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Atlas Shrugged  | Ayn Rand, who unintentionally provided the impetus for the movement, disdained libertarians, calling them “right-wing hippies.’ She was unequivocal in her support for Israel, which she explained this way in a 1974 appearance: “When you have civilized men fighting savages, you support the civilized men, no matter who they are.”  

• Our off the books economy 
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Atlas Shrugged  | I have suspected this for some time now, that one sector thriving under Obama is the Off-the-Books Economy. This week the subject came up on CNBC when Jim Cramer discussed record 631 days the average loan in foreclosure has now been delinquent. [....] Here is a comment from one of the stories [...]. “[....] [W]hat I have noticed is that over the past two years, more and more of my clients not only go for the cash-only option, they understand and appreciate it... to the point now, where I haven’t received a check in 6 months. John Galt at work.”  

• • Should Churches Be Helping Occupy Wall Street? 
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Capitalism  |Individual Rights  | A church that respects and values human life will not help a movement that is set on the destruction of Capitalism because it is the only system that allows life to thrive and flourish. This is because Capitalism respects property rights. As Ayn Rand said, “The right to life is the source of all rights -- and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life.”  

• • OWS in Chicago (a photo essay) 
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Atlas Shrugged  |Image  | Someone in the crowd has heard about Atlas Shrugged and John Galt.




 

• • Property Rights Equals The Right to Life 
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Individual Rights  |Objectivist author  | As Ayn Rand said, “The right to life is the source of all rights--and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life.”  

• • Steve Jobs- A True Capitalist 
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Atlas Shrugged  | Inspired by Ayn Rand’s magnum opus “Atlas Shrugged,” Jobs held a very high regard for creators and the notion that you should pay for the goods and services you receive. Nowhere was this more apparent than his push to establish a unique “spaceship” shaped headquarters for Apple in the heart of Silicon Valley- Cupertino, California.  

• • Public sector employees need protection from government, but we don’t? 
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But as an advocate of capitalism, objectivism, and constitutionally limited republics, and in light of current trends, I can see one group of government employees whose unionization would benefit us all; if only the Senate and House of Representatives were to unionize and go out on strike.  

• Ron Paul’s Poisonous Partisans 
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There’s a difference between those conscientious libertarians who understand that Ayn Rand was right about personal freedom and some of the so-called “Paulistas,” of which [Adam] Kokesh is a vocal and active proponent. It was he and others like him who out-organized Pawlenty in the Iowa Straw Poll and relegated him to the status of “former candidate.”  

• • Retaking the Culture: Finding The Right Stories 
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We The Living  | In We The Living, Ayn Rand has a scene where the lover of the protagonist asking for his life is sneered at by a Communist Commissar. “What is one man in the face of the Union Of Soviet Socialist Republics?” he asks. “What is the Union Of Soviet Socialist Republics in the face of one man” she defiantly answers. Which is the whole point.  

• • Make the Capital Strike Official 

Atlas Shrugged  | [Jerry Della Femina ] published an editorial in the East Hampton Independent, in which he announced the sale of his eponymous, and successful, restaurant, a restaurant that had long been his dream and his passion. [....] Rather than merely announce the sale, Della Femina [...] told his readers why he was selling. [....] What we have in America today is a capital strike, straight out of the pages of Atlas Shrugged. And what we have, in Della Femina’s editorial, is John Galt’s 60-page speech condensed into a few paragraphs.  

• • • The ‘Ayn Rand vs. Jesus Christ’ Campaign 
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Atheism  |Ayn Rand Institute  |Atlas Shrugged  |Capitalism  |Individual Rights  |Individualism  |Objectivist author  | The American Values Network, a left-wing group, with considerable funding by George Soros, has launched a media blitz under the banner “Ayn Rand vs. Jesus Christ.” As an Institute founded by Ayn Rand’s heir and devoted to advancing her philosophy, Objectivism, we would like to respond. Since this is an issue Rand faced repeatedly in her lifetime, our response is basically to let her speak for herself.  

• • The Education of a Compassionate Conservative 
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Back in the late 1960s Ayn Rand wrote a book -- The New Left -- in which she issued warnings to various establishment conservatives who were willingly being steamrolled by a fledgling minority of newly smug collectivists in America. Rand was one of the few to understand that America’s future depended more than anything else on winning a battle of ideas: “In the absence of intellectual opposition, the rebels’ notions will gradually come to be absorbed into the culture. The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by precedent, by implication, by erosion, by default, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other - until the day when they are suddenly declared to be the country’s official ideology.” On the other hand, said Rand, “you would be surprised how quickly the ideologists of collectivism retreat when they encounter a confident, intellectual adversary.”  

• • • Atlas Is Shrugging In The US And Flexing His Muscles Elsewhere 
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Atlas Shrugged  | Atlas Shrugging is not an absolute loss of talent as envisioned by Rand. It is a relocation of talent. Atlas is not suffering, he is merely relocating.  

• • The Purposeful Flooding of America’s Heartland 
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There are many well-publicized examples of absurd obeisance to the demands of radical environmentalists resulting in great economic harm. The Great Missouri River Flood of 2011 is shaping up to be another -- only this time, the price will likely be paid in lives lost as well as treasure. Ayn Rand said, “You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.”  

• Obama Era Economic Stagnation Explained by Lemonade and Cookies 
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Atlas Shrugged  | The Bethesda authorities’ penalizing of the kids’ drink stand is simply a micro-version of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)’s attempt to prevent Boeing from opening up their massive Dream Liner plant in North Charleston, SC. It’s also much like the EPA running Shell Oil out of Alaskan waters after Shell had invested four billion dollars in exploration in those waters. These are the same battles as the Maryland lemonade stand, just on a scale of billions of dollars. It’s the idea that central planners and government statists know what’s best for our economy and our population. It’s the thinking that the cumulative decisions made by free peoples and free enterprises acting in their own best interests cannot be trusted without bureaucratic supervision. This is chilling the business climate everywhere. Entrepreneurs are on strike, à la Atlas Shrugged, and for the same reasons.  

• • Ron Paul’s Controversial Statement Exposes Foreign Policy Rift 
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Libertarian-leaning conservatives often find themselves closer to Ayn Rand’s views of a strong military and defense guided by American exceptionalism and rational, effective self-defense. Rand offered no tolerance for anti-war libertarians, unendearlingly calling them the “hippies of the right,” but that doesn’t mean that a coming together of the two sides is a non-starter in confronting the excess of the Pentagon’s sub-trillion-dollar budget.