Another excellent article. Thank you. Wow. Exactly.
I particularly like your insightful integration about the "elite" being an epistemological concept these days. One who has epistemological standards.
I also really like the identification of a myopic bias among Objectivists against Liberals and government institutions en masse. Myopic. They can't see the bigger picture, the bigger threat, because they're in a rut of only hating anything having to do with the left--including any fight against tyranny.
Plus, of course, an Objectivist bias favoring the image of a "successful businessmen" (though Trump is not that in reality). But even successful businessmen are often moral cowards. A point that Rand made clear but which many Objectivists ignore. Such businessmen often became successful by ONLY paying attention to how their business is doing, not by distracting things like individual rights, free trade, or the threat of cronyism.
Pro-Trump Objectivists have been involved in some of my most disheartening arguments. They should know better, but they don't. Allegedly, we start with the same premises, but end up on polar opposite sides of the issue of dictatorship. Trump, in fact, has proven to be an excellent litmus test for a person's basic character. Unfortunately, a much better test than the term "Objectivist".
It is natural and proper for libertarians/classical liberals to be “anti-establishment” in one sense. We believe that liberty, justice, and the pursuit of happiness are best served by a government that respects people's rights and is no more avaricious, powerful, or controlling that it needs to be. That makes us skeptical of and puts us in opposition to a lot of things the present government does. It should not make us dogmatic or blind to context. We need a liberal, constitutional order and the laws, institutions, and customs that preserve it. We need effective armed forces and intelligence agencies. We need alliances, trade, and as much of a civilized order among civilized nations as we can get. The goal of libertarian political action should be maximizing liberty within the present context while working to change the context to allow for more liberty, not some Rothbardian utopia incompatible with the world as it is. Many libertarians demand utopia and often see everything short of it as equally unacceptable. That is pretty much nutty and can leave them suckers for those wanting to tear the whole thing down.
I am more optimistic than you are. I don’t think the structure and institutions will be lying in a heap because of Trump – stressed some yes, ruined no, particularly if enough people do the right thing and stand up for them.
Anticipatory Contrarian here...emphasis on Contra mine. We the Living in an Idiocracy, no thanks to stupid people have the right to vote and dumb mass marketing working on the attention span of a man with no self remote control.
Respectfully, as much as I can still feign it, you have continually ignored my plea to please stop fing referring to our shameless, mendacious, narcissistic, megalomaniac, crony capitalist pig, casino card shark magnate, FTX, I mean NFT huckster, anti truth neo nationalist sociopath, formerly the worlds biggest triple X soft racist porn site twitter troll and Americas Now Biggest Sore Winner Donald J Trump a "conservative". The G.O.P. Crasher, formerly Deformed Party POTUS nominee is simply the luckiest man to be alive - and I am not talking about that lone gunman just missing - The Don, Ill Duce meets Tony Soprano wannabe had the cosmic fortune of hitting the ballot box jackpot, not once, but TWICE!!!! Do the names Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris mean anything to your classical liberal analysis on the passing scene!?
Anywho, I am not here to denounce you, just hopefully to make you think a second time...and even better to make you laugh. RFKJ, Tulsi Gabbard, K$sh Patel...are not hippies of the Right, crunchy conservatives...anymore than The Morton Downey Jr look and sound a like in the Oval Office was speaking to actual libertarians this summer. W.T.F. happened to the so called principles I wasted my right to suffrage for in the 90's is as angering as how many people I have witnessed sell out their immortal souls to Heat Miser in the flesh...but, again, Robert, he is no Hitlerian, as much as the one and only "conservative" slogan is eerily reminiscent of some jackwad screaming "Deutschland" to get a rise out of his sicko fans to make America great again. We the people already live in the greatest country on God's green earth...thanks to the Constitution which, if you ask me, does not prescribe, but literally proscribes much of the institutions you have astonishingly now come to their defenses...because you (like me) despise the ignoramus reality tv porn star. Clever talk about Chesterton fence allegory notwithstanding, as much as I would be happy to say to Alex Jones and RFKJ's conman, not conservative faces they both should be thrown out of a...for dastardly lying crimes against humanity...If Trumps Clown Circus super downsizes the Big Government...just as we libertarians survived eight years of Obamas glib meglomania...so will you Robert. Oh, and here's hoping the freaks and geeks that abused their unconstitutional powers during the red scare, I mean the Chinese Communist Corona Party pandemic get their comeuppance. And don't get me started on your equally astonishing defense of the Trump vaccine and it being, lest you forget, government mandated, constitution be damned. Gotta run on. Thanks for taking my rant R.T. Peace through superior mental firepower
Another excellent article. Thank you. Wow. Exactly.
I particularly like your insightful integration about the "elite" being an epistemological concept these days. One who has epistemological standards.
I also really like the identification of a myopic bias among Objectivists against Liberals and government institutions en masse. Myopic. They can't see the bigger picture, the bigger threat, because they're in a rut of only hating anything having to do with the left--including any fight against tyranny.
Plus, of course, an Objectivist bias favoring the image of a "successful businessmen" (though Trump is not that in reality). But even successful businessmen are often moral cowards. A point that Rand made clear but which many Objectivists ignore. Such businessmen often became successful by ONLY paying attention to how their business is doing, not by distracting things like individual rights, free trade, or the threat of cronyism.
Pro-Trump Objectivists have been involved in some of my most disheartening arguments. They should know better, but they don't. Allegedly, we start with the same premises, but end up on polar opposite sides of the issue of dictatorship. Trump, in fact, has proven to be an excellent litmus test for a person's basic character. Unfortunately, a much better test than the term "Objectivist".
It is natural and proper for libertarians/classical liberals to be “anti-establishment” in one sense. We believe that liberty, justice, and the pursuit of happiness are best served by a government that respects people's rights and is no more avaricious, powerful, or controlling that it needs to be. That makes us skeptical of and puts us in opposition to a lot of things the present government does. It should not make us dogmatic or blind to context. We need a liberal, constitutional order and the laws, institutions, and customs that preserve it. We need effective armed forces and intelligence agencies. We need alliances, trade, and as much of a civilized order among civilized nations as we can get. The goal of libertarian political action should be maximizing liberty within the present context while working to change the context to allow for more liberty, not some Rothbardian utopia incompatible with the world as it is. Many libertarians demand utopia and often see everything short of it as equally unacceptable. That is pretty much nutty and can leave them suckers for those wanting to tear the whole thing down.
I am more optimistic than you are. I don’t think the structure and institutions will be lying in a heap because of Trump – stressed some yes, ruined no, particularly if enough people do the right thing and stand up for them.
Hi Robert,
Anticipatory Contrarian here...emphasis on Contra mine. We the Living in an Idiocracy, no thanks to stupid people have the right to vote and dumb mass marketing working on the attention span of a man with no self remote control.
Respectfully, as much as I can still feign it, you have continually ignored my plea to please stop fing referring to our shameless, mendacious, narcissistic, megalomaniac, crony capitalist pig, casino card shark magnate, FTX, I mean NFT huckster, anti truth neo nationalist sociopath, formerly the worlds biggest triple X soft racist porn site twitter troll and Americas Now Biggest Sore Winner Donald J Trump a "conservative". The G.O.P. Crasher, formerly Deformed Party POTUS nominee is simply the luckiest man to be alive - and I am not talking about that lone gunman just missing - The Don, Ill Duce meets Tony Soprano wannabe had the cosmic fortune of hitting the ballot box jackpot, not once, but TWICE!!!! Do the names Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris mean anything to your classical liberal analysis on the passing scene!?
Anywho, I am not here to denounce you, just hopefully to make you think a second time...and even better to make you laugh. RFKJ, Tulsi Gabbard, K$sh Patel...are not hippies of the Right, crunchy conservatives...anymore than The Morton Downey Jr look and sound a like in the Oval Office was speaking to actual libertarians this summer. W.T.F. happened to the so called principles I wasted my right to suffrage for in the 90's is as angering as how many people I have witnessed sell out their immortal souls to Heat Miser in the flesh...but, again, Robert, he is no Hitlerian, as much as the one and only "conservative" slogan is eerily reminiscent of some jackwad screaming "Deutschland" to get a rise out of his sicko fans to make America great again. We the people already live in the greatest country on God's green earth...thanks to the Constitution which, if you ask me, does not prescribe, but literally proscribes much of the institutions you have astonishingly now come to their defenses...because you (like me) despise the ignoramus reality tv porn star. Clever talk about Chesterton fence allegory notwithstanding, as much as I would be happy to say to Alex Jones and RFKJ's conman, not conservative faces they both should be thrown out of a...for dastardly lying crimes against humanity...If Trumps Clown Circus super downsizes the Big Government...just as we libertarians survived eight years of Obamas glib meglomania...so will you Robert. Oh, and here's hoping the freaks and geeks that abused their unconstitutional powers during the red scare, I mean the Chinese Communist Corona Party pandemic get their comeuppance. And don't get me started on your equally astonishing defense of the Trump vaccine and it being, lest you forget, government mandated, constitution be damned. Gotta run on. Thanks for taking my rant R.T. Peace through superior mental firepower