John Ballantyne discusses three radical libertarians who pushed the idea of freedom to ridiculous extremes.
Who today remembers the novelist and philosopher of radical individualism, Ayn Rand? Quite a few people, apparently. Although she has been dead for almost four decades, her books continue to sell in large numbers, and her ideas are still highly influential in corporate board-rooms and free-market think-tanks.
Her creed of radical libertarianism has a certain superficial attractiveness, with its call for smaller government, lower taxation and greater personal freedom. Many conservatives, particularly in the United States, and increasingly in Australia, look to radical libertarians as their natural allies.
Yet this creed, as we shall see, has a dark side, which is hostile to many Judaeo-Christian values and civilised norms.
Ayn Rand was born in Russia in 1905. She left the country when she was 21, emigrating alone to the United States.
It is understandable that she reacted against the communist system from which she had fled. Unfortunately, she then went to the extreme of advocating the virtual elimination of any role for government in society.
Rand has been the subject of an excellent recent biography by Jennifer Burns, called Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right.
At a young age, Rand passionately devoured the writings of the 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, and eagerly embraced his militant atheism. In early 1934, she began a private philosophical journal. In her very first entry, she concluded with the words: “I want to be known as the greatest champion of reason and the greatest enemy of religion.”
She was not exactly the embodiment of pure reason herself. She responded in a bizarre manner to an atrocious murder in the US, which made headlines around the world in the 1920s. A deranged American killer, William Hickman, in December 1927 kidnapped a 12-year-old schoolgirl, then murdered and dismembered her. On being captured, he boasted of his grisly deed. The Los Angeles Times referred to Hickman’s actions as “the most horrible crime of the 1920’s”.
Astonishing to say, Ayn Rand acclaimed this psychopathic monster as a hero, someone who had been misunderstood by society. She admired his supposed independence of mind and his flouting of society’s conventions by his refusal to express remorse. She scolded respectable folk for being so small-minded in their hatred of the killer. By contrast, she praised the murderer Hickman for having “no regard whatever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own”. She described him as “a man who really stands alone, in action and in soul.”
Ayn Rand preached an uncompromising creed of radical individualism through her novels, political tracts and a personal newsletter. She advocated a society based on completely deregulated capitalism — no constraints whatsoever — and almost zero government. She was dogmatic and intolerant. She put her personal beliefs on a par with science and coined the term “objectivism” to describe her creed. She attracted a sizeable following among leading academics and public figures.
One of her disciples was Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995), a highly influential American economist who sought to promote, through his books and articles, a similar libertarian philosophy based on radical personal autonomy with few if any legal constraints.
In his 1970 book, Power and Market, Rothbard denounced every sort of government measure as “organised coercion” and “violence on a large scale”. In another of his works, For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto (1978), he demanded that government relinquish its control of law courts, police and emergency services, and let them be run by private firms. He also called for the repeal of all restrictions on child labour, including laws “requiring ‘working papers’ and all sorts of red tape before a youngster can be hired”.
Rothbard proudly adopted the name “anarcho-capitalism” to describe his philosophy of virtually zero government.
Another Rand-Rothbard acolyte and anarcho-capitalist is Walter Block (born in 1941), who wrote a libertarian polemic of incredible foolishness, Defending the Undefendable (1976). In his book he defends the slanderer and libeller, the person who yells “Fire!” in a crowded theatre, the drug-pusher, the employer of child labour, the blackmailer, the dishonest cop and many other social pariahs.
It is little surprise that Block in 2007 declared: “I am a devout atheist.”
Rand, Rothbard and Block are all Americans, but America is not the only country where such politically extreme ideas have flourished. Britain in the 19th century, when it was experiencing the Industrial Revolution, had prominent economists and public figures who tenaciously fought against the introduction of the most elementary government measures to promote factory safety and public health.
Social reformer Edwin Chadwick established a link between unclean living conditions and the high rates of disease and death in the big cities. However, his campaign to introduce clean drinking water and better sanitation met with fierce opposition from the British Establishment’s newspaper, The Times of London. In one of its editorials in 1854, it thundered: “We prefer to take our chance with cholera than be bullied into health.”
What sort of people are radical libertarians?
The 20th-century variety, exemplified by Rand, Rothbard and Block, is characterised by militant atheism and antipathy to Judaeo-Christian values.
Ayn Rand lived in an open marriage. Both she and her husband were repeatedly unfaithful to each other. During her marriage, Rand conducted an affair with one of her intellectual disciples, Nathaniel Branden, a famous psychotherapist best known today for promoting the psychology of self-esteem.
Rand loathed Christian ideals of marital fidelity, altruism, service and self-sacrifice. In one of her best-known works, The Fountainhead (1943), she warned: “Look back at history. Look at any great system of ethics, from the Orient up.… Under all the complications of verbiage, haven’t they all had a single leitmotif: sacrifice, renunciation, self-denial? …
“Just listen to any prophet and if you hear him speak of sacrifice — run. Run faster than the plague.”
Rand’s ideology, although seeming to extol human freedom, in fact advocated misanthropy, greed and narcissism. Some of her writings remind one of that terrible scene in Shakespeare when Lady Macbeth summons the powers of darkness to divest her of any conscience and compassion.
Rand’s bleak philosophy of radical personal autonomy, however, gave her little personal consolation. She became addicted to amphetamines and smoked two packets of cigarettes a day for decades until her death at the age of 77 from lung cancer. She admitted: “Nothing existential gave me any great pleasure. And progressively, as my idea developed, I had more and more a sense of loneliness.”
Nathaniel Branden’s wife Barbara recalls in her memoir, The Passion of Ayn Rand, of how abominably Rand treated her friends and disciples. By the end of her life, Rand had scarcely a friend in the world. At her funeral in New York in 1982, alongside her coffin was a massive six-foot floral arrangement in the shape of a dollar sign — a fitting monument to her lifelong worship of money and self.
Atheists Rand and Rothbard had no concept of the sacredness of human life and were resolutely in favour of abortion-on-demand. Rand despised conservative American President Ronald Reagan for his opposition to abortion. She declared: “An embryo has no rights.” (Emphasis is Rand’s).
Her disciple, Rothbard — the one who believed in legalising child labour — spoke in similar terms on the subject. It is interesting to read Rothbard’s own words on abortion because it provides a window into his soul.
In his 1978 work, For A New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, he asked: ““What human has the right to remain, unbidden, as an unwanted parasite within some other human being’s body?” (Emphasis is Rothbard’s). He contended that “what the mother is doing in an abortion is causing an unwanted entity within her body to be ejected from it: If the fetus dies, this does not rebut the point that no being has a right to live, unbidden, as a parasite within or upon some person’s body.”
Donald De Marco and Benjamin Wiker, in their important study Architects of the Culture of Death, justifiably identify Ayn Rand as a leading intellectual contributor to today’s anti-life culture.
Even after death, Ayn Rand has continued to exert a formidable influence across the world of ideas. Her books — both novels and works on economics — continue to sell. In America alone, sales of her books run at 800,000 a year.
Two leading American free-market think-tanks, the Cato Institute and the Atlas Society (the latter named after Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged), credit Rand with being their intellectual inspiration. Stephen Moore, a senior economics writer for The Wall Street Journal, recalls when, some years ago, he used to work at the Cato Institute. He says that they used to label any new recruit who had not yet read Rand’s Atlas Shrugged a “virgin”. He recalls: “Being conversant in Ayn Rand’s classic novel … was practically a job requirement.”
From Ayn Rand’s books and from the various think-tanks that her ideology spawned, the amoral agenda of radical libertarianism has found its way into corporate board-rooms, with some business tycoons entertaining delusions that they are Nietzschean Supermen and Masters of the Universe — although perhaps not to quite the same extent since the onset of the global slump.
Occasionally, some of Rand’s more intelligent followers have succumbed to the odd doubt about the reliability of radical libertarian theory when it has come into collision with the real world.
Former Federal Reserve Bank chairman, Alan Greenspan, a close follower of Rand’s from his youth until her death, had second thoughts, following the global financial crisis, about libertarian ideology.
In Congressional testimony on October 23, 2008, Greenspan conceded his error on financial deregulation. The New York Times wrote, “a humbled Mr Greenspan admitted that he had put too much faith in the self-correcting power of free markets and had failed to anticipate the self-destructive power of wanton mortgage lending. … Mr Greenspan refused to accept blame for the crisis but acknowledged that his belief in deregulation had been shaken”.
Overall, however, despite the doubters, the influence of the ideas of Rand, Rothbard and Block continue to win new adherents — and Australia is not immune to this influence.
Australia’s free-market think-tank, the Institute of Public Affairs, recently launched a 330-page volume of essays, entitled 100 Great Books of Liberty: The Essential Introduction to the Greatest Idea of Western Civilisation. Some of the essays praised the worthwhile contributions of famous thinkers, such as John Locke, Edmund Burke, Adam Smith and Alexis de Tocqueville. However, three essays in the IPA’s book actually extolled the anarcho-capitalist libertarian ideas of, in turn, Rand, Rothbard and Block.
It is a pity the IPA’s book was not published as two volumes — the first one to commemorate genuinely great thinkers of liberty, and a second one to warn people against the toxic ideology of Ayn Rand and her disciples. For radical libertarians — or anarcho-capitalists as they are proud to call themselves — are as much agents of social decomposition and enemies of Judaeo-Christian civilisation as are atheistic Marxists and French postmodernists.
[Editor's note: full references can be found on the original article at News Weekly]
John Ballantyne is editor of News Weekly and National Observer.
Interesting to note that there was no logical argument in this piece, only shock, hyperbolae and ad hominem. If you want to mount an argument against libertarianism, do so, I'd be interested in reading that. But stomping your feet shouting 'ATHEIST', 'ANARCHO-CAPITALIST' and 'METHAMPHETAMINES' doesn't advance your cause in any way.
Posted by: Chris | September 2, 2010 at 01:48 PM
Did you actually read the piece Chris? Apparently not. Well-written John. So many people on this site love this woman Rand but I bet they never knew anything about these things.
Posted by: John | September 2, 2010 at 03:06 PM
Rand is a perfect example of the problems of extremism of any sort. And yes, I've read plenty of her stuff. The woman was a highly intelligent fool.
Posted by: Graham | September 2, 2010 at 03:09 PM
Radical liberty? What on earth does that mean? How can freedom be "extreme?"
Your essay would have been a LOT more interesting had you dealt with Rand's ideas, but it's clear from "... Rand and Rothbard had no concept of the sacredness of human life ..." that you don't really understand them.
As for Rothbard being influential: well, we might wish it so, but it hasn't happened yet. Keep watching, though; the Austrians are beginning to be noticed.
Posted by: Michael Stack | September 2, 2010 at 03:12 PM
Michael, it pays to think before you write. Your question "How can freedom be extreme?" is truly bizarre. There is a myriad of examples, but a particularly good one is taking the life of another.
Posted by: Dave | September 2, 2010 at 03:29 PM
>>How can freedom be "extreme?"
Her ideas are extreme because she advocates beliefs which deviate dramatically from the norm. Whether you agree with the woman or not, by the very definition of the word "extreme" it's quite easy to see how Ayn Rand would be described as such.
"Radical liberty" is roughly the same. Radical and extreme are practically interchangable in this context. It is the prescription of 'liberty' to an extreme.
Posted by: Graham | September 2, 2010 at 03:34 PM
Libertarianism is such a selfish ideology. It's no wonder Rand was so averse to sacrifice.
Posted by: Sally | September 2, 2010 at 03:37 PM
These libertarians sound terrifying. Most troublingly they often look and sound like ordinary people, making them impossible to identify and persecute.
Posted by: Joseph Clark | September 2, 2010 at 03:50 PM
It’s a fine line between Tyranny and Anarchy.
If the Green-Labor Alliance get’s Government, we’re a step closer to the former.
Posted by: Andy | September 2, 2010 at 04:05 PM
This article consists of Mr Ballantyne identifying that some libertarians hold some values that he does not agree with - mainly atheism - and then apparently it's supposed to be entirely self-evident to the reader that this is a dangerous idea. He's identified what some of these writers think - if I wanted to know this I could read their texts first hand. At no point does he actually make an argument about why any particular libertarian belief is dangerous.
This article is great as onanism for the converted. As a contribution to thoughtful debate, it is poor.
Posted by: Cameron | September 2, 2010 at 05:50 PM
Rand has a particular appeal to the adolescent mind; the mind that rejects authority.
A rejection of God leads ultimately to a self-centred egoism. In contrast, true love of God inspires love of neighbour and service to one's neighbour in order to serve God.
Atheism is obviously a rejection of transcendent authority. In this way, it is the ultimate form of pride. Pride is the greatest of sins and it is the source of all sin. To a greater or lesser extent, we are all afflicted by the disease of pride but the atheist's problem is the refusal to admit this pride, which thereby renders the disease terminal. In the absence of God, the atheist becomes his/her own God. Since we're all spiritual, atheism transforms the natural human sprituality that worships our Creator into a worship of the self. Rand is the classic example - although by no means the sole example - of this condition.
Posted by: Angry Conservative | September 2, 2010 at 06:01 PM
As someone who read Ayn Rand's work and enjoyed them, but not a subscriber to her particular world view, i was going to rebut the article when i got the 2nd paragraph. But by the time i got to the 5th or 6th paragraph i realized the article was nothing more than a hit piece against atheists and the libertarian mode to preserve the civil liberties of all people which includes protecting people from the tyranny of religious indoctrination.
I'm giving my rebuttal in the form that is deserving of the article:
"..."
Posted by: Vikas Nayak | September 2, 2010 at 06:16 PM
I can't see why you're trying to stamp libertarian atheists. Not all of us are busybodies who actually have the patience to try and rail against religion and established traditions, nor are we all tripped out druggies that deny that government has a role to play.
Most of the libertarians I talk to just want to be left alone to run their own lives free of interference from any coercive entity, whether it's to pursue commerce, charity or simply to enjoy a joint every so often. We don't seek to interfere with your right to collectively organise and call yourself a "religion", "church", "congregation" or what have you. We don't want to take away your right to have a ceremony in front of friends and family and call yourselves "married". Some of us, myself included, don't even want to stop you from choosing your friends in such a way that you exclude a certain type of person for whatever reason. Personally, I just want to left alone to my own business. Where I'm not hurting anyone, what need is there to show aggression toward me? In return for letting me run about my own life, I will gladly extend the favour. I really have better things to do than minding your own business :/
Posted by: Steve | September 2, 2010 at 07:48 PM
So much stupid. Ugh.
Posted by: Brett | September 2, 2010 at 11:50 PM
Ayn Rand was not a libertarian you moron she hated libertarians
Posted by: Brett | September 2, 2010 at 11:51 PM
[Removed by editors]
Posted by: Dan Nolan | September 3, 2010 at 12:10 AM
Actually, no, to be more accurate:
HURF DURF AFEIST TIBERLARIANS!!!!!! DEY UNTO NO JEYSUS!!
THIS DURFS MY HURF!
Posted by: Dan Nolan | September 3, 2010 at 12:12 AM
[Removed by editors - inappropriate]
Posted by: Riet Rotherham | September 3, 2010 at 12:26 AM
Angry Conservative, your argument, aside from being completely retarded is illogical. For a start we aren't all spiritual. Spirituality is in no way different from being religious, they are one and the same. Atheism is no congruous with "spirituality" unless you're a dead shit.
Secondly, if the only reason you help your neighbour, as you put it, is because of god, I'd reason that you're a dick. It's this kind of logic that allows for bigotry within our society.
Thirdly, in the absence of a god there is no god. I don't become my own one, that is utter nonsense. There aren't any gods, I am mortal, that is all there is to it.
Fourthly by attempting to characterise yourself as better than us, because of your own perception of the world, is a far greater display of pride than me enjoying what you consider a vice.
Posted by: Riet Rotherham | September 3, 2010 at 12:34 AM
Jeez , John you are so wrong. Libertarians want smaller government because it fucks most thing up royally, the right to be left alone and to keep the most what they earn.
A large number of them have Christian beliefs too, or at the very lest are aligned with Christianity.
I can't believe you would characterize all libertarians the way you have. Rand was a nut but she had good points. Rothbard was a nut but he also made good points.
Try and be a little more honest next time.
Posted by: J | September 3, 2010 at 01:38 AM
Menzies House: there's room for everyone, except godless libertarians.
Posted by: Greego | September 3, 2010 at 03:04 AM
Libertarians and An-caps don't want to take away your right to believe utterly retarded things! Don't think that! They just want to take away your ability to inflict your retarded ideas on other people down the barrel of a gun through the apparatus of state.
"EXTREMIST FREEDOM LOVERS". Yeah those radical individuals who adhere to the non-aggression axiom sure are extremists!
Posted by: Dan Nolan | September 3, 2010 at 08:07 AM
Further, to address the fact that "Most Atheists don't like their dads or are fighting against Authority", fantastic straw man!
Here's another equally valid straw man, religious people have a mental deficiency that make them believe in fairies.
Seriously though if you do believe some jew on a stick wandered around 2000 years ago curing miracles without any fuckin evidence (hint the bible doesn't count), and take into account the amount of times the 'son of god' meme has occurred in society, I have a bridge to sell you.
Posted by: Dan Nolan | September 3, 2010 at 08:08 AM
actually, greego, i'd argue that there have been more libertarian leaning articles on menzies house than conservative. there is room for everyone...including people who are and aren't godless atheists.
but to agree with a few others on here, bringing atheism into the article discredits it a bit, despite the fact that it's an interesting piece.
Posted by: Rog | September 3, 2010 at 10:02 AM
Peter Boettke, an Austrian economist who teaches at George Mason University, told the Wall street Journal recently that he laments the fact that Austrian economics attracts so many kooks (though he thinks he can exclude himself). He even wants to call Austrian economics by a different name to try to turn off its crank magnetism. What does that say about this ideology?
Posted by: Mark Plus | September 3, 2010 at 11:18 AM
>>"Seriously though if you do believe some jew on a stick wandered around 2000 years ago curing miracles..."
Mr Nolanski, could you please explain to me how a man can cure a miracle?
Posted by: Angry Conservative | September 3, 2010 at 11:31 AM
Come on this isn't really a good argument, all you've done is say they where pro-abortion and athiests, and while I do find the first to be a problem, (and as a Christian I find the second a little off, particularly the more radical ones like Rand), you haven't really provided an argument against they're actual beliefs (any of them; even the Atheism and pro-abortion), but rather just stated them as if it should be self-obvious that they are wrong and evil.
Also at Dan Nolan: The Bible does count, there is a legitimate argument to be had over whether the various books and manuscripts thate where later combined to form the Bible is reliable historic sources, but refusing to accept anything in the Bible a priori is simply evidence of prejudice and an unwillingness to actually debate the issue (which is sort of what you're argueing that athiests don't do). Regardless there are plenty of non-Biblical evidence of the existence of a Jewish Rabbi named Jesus starting up a new sect in the early AD. Denying Jesus' existence is about as sensible as denying the existence of Caligula. Note that he's ability to perform miracles and rise from the dead is obviously open to debate, though of course the evidence for that is strong enough that the only reason it's debated is because many people believe it to be impossible. (If similar evidence existed for Caligula executing a Senator it would be widely accepted as true, because most people believe that to be a possibility)
Posted by: TimP | September 3, 2010 at 11:36 AM
Tim, the more extraordinary the claim, the more extraordinary the evidence needs to be.
For example, if i claim i drank a glass of water 10 minutes ago, im sure an empty glass will do. If i claim that the glass was full of ambrosia that made me immortal, of course futher proof would be necessary.
However i agree that the article presents arguments as though they are self-evident.
Posted by: Vikas Nayak | September 3, 2010 at 12:08 PM
Here, Here Chris. "Pro Abortion, Pro Murderer, Athiest, adulterist", there seems to be whole lot of playing the person rather than the ball there
Posted by: Benjamin Bankruptcy | September 3, 2010 at 12:25 PM
Could those writers using offensive language, please desist. If you can't comment without resorting to this kind of language, you should not write at all as you do not have anything worthwhile to say.
I have not read this book but I have noted the comments. I agree with Andy that there is a fine line between Tyranny and Anarchy. And if the Greens/Labor Alliance gets goverment Australia is a step closer to the former.
As far as Christianity and Atheism is concerned, that is people's choice and no one should criticise any person's beliefs or make snide remarks. However, if we do not believe in a God, then our life is empty and selfish. The future will reveal all. all.
Posted by: Georgina | September 3, 2010 at 01:57 PM
I think the key here is the self-evident charge both explicitly and implicitly implied by the author that Rand was someone who is not a worthy example. (note: I sensed the religious guilt trip complex from the start).
I personally have no problem with religious people or atheists, I also personally have no problem with the positive elements that can be gleaned from Rand's Objectivism as a philsophy.
Does this mean that because I explore and hold two competing philisophies up as important that this would nessesitate the charge that I am being contradictory. The answer is No!
Human frality, along with human strength is defined by the human nature that embodies and emboldens it.
Rand wasn't perfect, neither were the biblical authors, who are obviously an exellent example of divine intervention [for those inclined to believe].
That's the point though, humanity isn't perfect.
Fighting against a society whose impluse is collectivism and whose ultimate aims are conformity is the greatest form of heroism and morality that I can find [both inside and outside religious dogma].
Perpetuating theft, and tacitly accepting that interference in our God given or for the atheists "civic" liberities is the ultimate definition of evil.
If the standard being applied is that somehow Rand's personal behaviours and pronouncements were such that they disqualify her literary work because it doesn't meet the standard of the Bible or any other religious text, then I'm sorry, I have to write this off as perposterous.
We can't and shouldn't play God. However striving for a better world through individualism, isn't incompatible with the ideals and virtue espoused by religion, most particularly Christianity.
I say this in the full knowledge that despite my respect for Rand's work, I understand that she wasn't perfect regardless of the moral standards I may be tempted to apply.
In conclusion - A is still A :-)
Posted by: NotMuss | September 3, 2010 at 02:20 PM
Strange article. The author is wrong to identify Rand as an anarcho-capitalist, and of course over-looked the minarchist-anarchist debate that went on between the objectivists and the Rothbardians.
But I found it more strange that the author wants to draw a sharp line between "good" libertarians (Edmund Burke, Adam Smith) and "naughty" libertarians (Murray Rothbard, Ayn Rand). This begs the question of where he would place all the other libertarians... is Thomas Jefferson in the "good" or "naughty" category? How about Milton Friedman, David Friedman, Frederick Hayek, Tyler Cowen, Frederick Bastiat, H.L. Mencken, Thomas Sowell, Bryan Caplan, Henry Hazlitt etc? What is the criteria for becoming "naughty"? Is it because they don't share the religion of the author?
I am also left confused as to the author's attitude to the role of government. If the author trusts the government to run our lives more correctly that we can ourselves, then it is obvious that he wouldn't like libertarians... but he doesn't make this point explicitly.
Posted by: John Humphreys | September 3, 2010 at 02:48 PM
>>We can't and shouldn't play God. However striving for a better world through individualism, isn't incompatible with the ideals and virtue espoused by religion, most particularly Christianity.
Yes it is actually. Excessive individualism runs completely counter to the teachings of Jesus and Christianity more broadly. Objectivism does so rather blatantly, in fact.
Posted by: Graham | September 3, 2010 at 02:48 PM
I am no Rand apologist, in fact I find some of the things she says to be unfounded. I disagree with her view that selfishness is a virtue. I disagree that gold is the same thing as freedom. And I disagree with her vehement pro intellectual property stance.
But I will make these points.
“no regard whatever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own”
- That's not expressing support for murder. It's clearly expressing support for contrarianism and not being ruled by societal norms.
As for Rothbard, explain why all these things are bad - privatising courts, police and emergency services, abolishing child labour laws.
Incedentally, how old was Jesus when he supposedly was a carpenter? Imagine the bible set in this world: 'And thus, Jesus went forth to the bench and proclaimed 'Lo! I shall build great things here.' But then the OH&S inspector forbade it.'
And as for Block, explain why these things are bad - slander, libel etc.
What do you have against open marriage, if both parties are happy with it? Your attack on Rand for engaging in that seems as though it is more intended to provoke a 'yuck' reaction rather than appeal to reason, rather than to attack her beliefs. It's an attack on a radical libertarian (if we can call her that), not radical libertarianism.
And does loneliness indicate that you're wrong about life? In all groups - the religious, the agnostics and the atheists - there will be people who get lonely. This doesn't make them wrong about god. The existence or non-existence of a god makes them right or wrong. Stay on topic.
Rothbard's parasite argument is a funny one. I can understand it producing a gut reaction against it, but if you want to argue against it, do it using logic.
Alan Greenspan. Where to start. Most libertarians would agree that he thoroughly abandoned libertarianism. His monetary policy was much more compatible with socialism than capitalism. And then he blamed it on the market.
In the whole article you didn't mention what 'Judeo-Christian values' were attacked by libertarianism, with the possible exception of abortion. And even then you didn't propose what to do about them - if you wish to ban things that are not compatible with Christianity, then you are simply a pro-big-government enemy of freedom. If you don't wish to ban them, then are you one of the radical libertarians? I think we can guess which side you came down on.
This reads more like a biography than a detailed rebuttal of radical libertarianism (or anarcho-capitalism or objectivism).
Posted by: Chris | September 3, 2010 at 03:49 PM
>>"For a start we aren't all spiritual. Spirituality is in no way different from being religious"
We are all spiritual. Religion is spirituality in an organised and doctrinal form. The fact that some people don't attend religious ceremonies doesn't lessen their spirituality.
-----
>>"Secondly, if the only reason you help your neighbour, as you put it, is because of god, I'd reason that you're a dick. It's this kind of logic that allows for bigotry within our society."
Please explain how my logic opens the door to bigotry. Your reasoning does not amount to anything other than a misconceived attempt to use a callous label with which to try and insult me.
I help my neighbour because all good things come from God and I honor goodness. When I help my neighbour, I am enabling myself to comprehend the truth of who God is and thereby receiving the graces and blessings that come from God.
-----
>>"Thirdly, in the absence of a god there is no god. I don't become my own one, that is utter nonsense. There aren't any gods, I am mortal, that is all there is to it.
To reject God is to reject objective moral truth. Once objective moral truth is abandoned, people become their own god in the sense of deciding upon a moral compass with which to guide their lives and determine right from wrong. Of course, the problem is that this moral compass, being a human creation, is thereby subjective.
---
>"Fourthly by attempting to characterise yourself as better than us, because of your own perception of the world, is a far greater display of pride than me enjoying what you consider a vice."
This is not about you/me, us/them etc. That's a false dichotomy and God doesn't work by that paradigm.
To be a Christian means that I accept God loves you just as much as He loves me.
I don't make that statement as some "display of pride." (in fact, it's a statement that is inherently contrary to pride) I say it because it's the truth.
To know the truth means to know that there is virtue and there is vice. I didn't make pride a vice: pride existed before I lived and it will exist after I have died. The only cure for pride is humility.
Ecclesiasticus 3:17-18.20.28-29
"My son, be gentle in carrying out your business, and you will be better loved than a lavish giver. The greater you are, the more you should behave humbly, and then you will find favour with the Lord; for great though the power of the Lord is, he accepts the homage of the humble. There is no cure for the
proud man's malady, since an evil growth has taken root in him. The heart of a sensible man will reflect on parables, an attentive ear is the sages dream."
Posted by: Angry Conservative | September 3, 2010 at 04:30 PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Civic_Council
I wonder if B.A. Santamaria thought seperation of church and state was an extremist idea?
Posted by: Serious_Face | September 3, 2010 at 05:12 PM
Interesting issues canvassed. I think there should be an online chat to debate this further! Someone get on the horn with Tim Andrews!
Posted by: Tim Humphries | September 3, 2010 at 05:27 PM
I regret to have to inform "J", "Chris", "Riet Rotherham" and other such deep kindergarten thinkers that Whittaker Chambers - whose very name they are doubtless too ignorant to know, but who actually experienced at first hand what totalitarian persecution at Soviet hands felt like - destroyed Rand's intellectual pretensions for all time in his once-famous essay "Big Sister Is Watching You" (National Review, 28 December 1957). He even managed to do so without once using four-letter words. Get over it.
Posted by: R J Stove | September 3, 2010 at 06:30 PM
Angry - you suggest that without god people decide for themselves what is right and wrong and that it is dangerous for people to decide what is right and wrong. However even if you believe in God and the scriptures you still have to figure out what God wants, what the scriptures mean, which parts of scripture are most important and in which context. Having recognised the complexity of all this the church, to help the flock, provides ministers to assist people in sifting all this data. However people must then decide which sermon is true to the cause and which is misguided. It seems to me that the Christian still needs to do a lot of that dangereous decision making stuff.
Posted by: TerjeP | September 3, 2010 at 08:12 PM
A far better known anarcho-capitalist than Murray Rothbard is David Friedman. Why he was not mentioned?
Rothbard had a short and rather unhappy association with Rand in the late 1950s. The breaking-point was when he was asked to leave his wife simply because she was a Christian. Rothbard was a secular Jew.
In 1972 Rothbard wrote "The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult". Its headings include The Index of Permitted Books, Steel-Hardened Cadre Man, Her Bible, Check With Headquarters, Excommunications and Purges, Son of Rand, and Ejection From Paradise.
As for Christianity, as Walter Block notes, Rothbard was pro-religion, especially pro-Catholic. Rothbard attributes the concepts of individualism and liberty to Christianity as well as almost everything else good in Western civilization!.
as Walter Block also notes, Rothbard argued strongly that as long as libertarians made hatred of religion a basic or organizing principle, they would go nowhere, since the vast majority of people everywhere are religious.
Rothbard's major contribution to the history of economic thought in his 2 volume 1995 book was reminding of central role of religion and the clergy in the development of economics. Rothbard's political analysis repeatedly mentioned the central role of religion in politics and ideology.
Posted by: Jim Rose | September 3, 2010 at 08:39 PM
Sure, you can use the Bible as a valid text, and claim the tenets of it to be valid, but again, it requires corroborating evidence. The vast majority of the information I know from a biblical standpoint comes from a good friend of mine who is a historian and a biblical scholar (speaking/reading ancient greek, hebrew, latin, etc).
As Vikas said "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". It's far more likely that the person Jesus tricked people into thinking he had magical powers (much as magicians perform illusions, using sleight of hand an other techniques, none of the laws of nature are broken or suspended).
The only argument for a theist or deist perspective that really stands up to any scrutiny is a teleological one, even then it's a substantially long bow to draw between saying "there is the potential for x y or z" and "x y or z is actually the modern day 7th adventist baptist sect (modern reclamation)".
Posted by: Dan Nolan | September 3, 2010 at 08:40 PM
I'm sorry, but at face value your comment is actually bullshit. Firstly the utter nonsense of saying "There is a fine line between tyrrany and anarchy". Well anarchy would imply a complete lack of the state, something that tyrrany (at least following the OED's definition) is the antithesis of. Perhaps you had best look into some introductory logic classes, to better understand that words actually have these things associated with them known as 'meanings'.
"If we do not believe in a God then our life is empty and selfish".
So you're saying you're only nice to people, or respect fellow human beings not out of a basic sense of empathy or compassion, but because you're afraid of eternal damnation?
What utter garbage to assume that if you don't find the fairy tales of religion compelling and consider a person to be able to act under his own recognisance with no debt of soul or action on his shoulder, you are suddenly living an empty, selfish life. I'd absolutely posit I'm kinder and more accepting of all manner of people, I don't judge people based on their lifestyle choices or decisions, I don't seek to condemn or label people for no particular reason, the list goes on and on.
Hell, I'm sure you can be a perfectly lovely person on occasion, it just seems that you are so blinded by what you see as an absolute morality that you have difficulty dealing with things outside of that vision. I'm sure you pat cats, and are lovely to your neighbours and the like, but I called people who clung to those ideas idiots (I also said 'here's an equivalent strawman'), I didn't say they had empty and meaningless lives, what an utterly awful and self-centered thing to say.
I was fairly certain one of the fundamental tenets of Jesus' teaching (at least what I derived from 12 years of Jesuit education) was that no one but god could judge others.
Sounds like you best emulate this Jesus fellow rather than simply follow him.
Posted by: Dan Nolan | September 3, 2010 at 08:47 PM
Interesting article, good read. I'll put it out there that I'm not a Rand fan, I find her books to basically be the equivalent of twilight for the nascent right-wing elements, and I find objectivism leaves an awful taste in the mouth.
Drawing a parallel between Rand and then explaining that Rothbard, Block, Friedman, Spooner, Mencken, etc (All individuals I hold in extremely high regard) are all flawed because they take such a 'totalitarian' view, is just flat out chicanery.
Posted by: Dan Nolan | September 3, 2010 at 08:56 PM
To reject God is to reject objective moral truth. Once objective moral truth is abandoned, people become their own god in the sense of deciding upon a moral compass with which to guide their lives and determine right from wrong. Of course, the problem is that this moral compass, being a human creation, is thereby subjective.
If objective moral truth involves molesting little boys, you can keep your paedophilia to your self, sir.
Posted by: Hogan's Ghost | September 3, 2010 at 09:13 PM
ITT we use our objective morality to point out the use of four letter words instead of addressing the argument.
Posted by: Hogan's Ghost | September 3, 2010 at 09:16 PM
HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
In one moronic conservative article, atheists get accused of "worshipping the state", and then in the next one, we're anti-authority rebels who want to get rid of the state.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Posted by: Brett | September 4, 2010 at 12:56 AM
hahaha atheists are less likely to be criminals and less likely to divorce: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T27kB4BjbEg
Posted by: Brett | September 4, 2010 at 12:59 AM
The interesting thing about Menzies House is that it has opened my eyes to how daft the conservative creed is. A project that I thought might entail conservatives and libertarians finding common cause has stuck a bigger wedge between them. However it is a blog so I shouldn't have been so naive. Blogs are after all the place where people come together to disagree. The flip side is that when I come here all those libertarians I argue with at the ALS suddenly seem like the most sensible people on earth. ;-)
Posted by: TerjeP | September 4, 2010 at 08:58 AM
>>"If objective moral truth involves molesting little boys, you can keep your paedophilia to your self, sir."
No, objective moral truth does not involve molesting little boys. The fact that there are people within the Christian churches who have grossly abused their position of trust, which is morally indefensible, does not diminish the truth of Christianity.
Does the fact that a percentage of school teachers have sexually abused their students render education ignoble?
Posted by: Angry Conservative | September 4, 2010 at 10:25 AM
Does the fact that some atheists have done some bad thing render .....
You get the point.
Posted by: TerjeP | September 4, 2010 at 10:41 AM
Terje, you're correct in stating that "the Christian still needs to do a lot of that dangereous decision making stuff." However, the Christian doesn't truly "decide what is right and wrong".
God grants us free will to make decisions for ourselves. However, the moral decisions we make are based on our conscience. Conscience must be properly formed in order to function properly in the same way as a motor car must be properly assembled in order to work properly.
A properly formed conscience enables the individual to live a life of wisdom, virtue and truth, all of which are the products of faith, hope and love that are given to us by God.
The reference points for all Christian decision-making should be the Ten Commandments, the Bible and the faith and moral doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church.
Posted by: Angry Conservative | September 4, 2010 at 11:14 AM
>>"I was fairly certain one of the fundamental tenets of Jesus' teaching (at least what I derived from 12 years of Jesuit education) was that no one but god could judge others."
OK. So let's follow your understanding of the Jesuit tenet through to its 'logical' conclusion:
We do not need law courts or prisons anymore!
----
I should have suspected that you were a chip-on-the-shoulder type of Catholic. The surname gave it away!
I'm very sorry for you that you had to endure 12 years of modern Jesuit education. (When I look at modern Jesuit schools, it makes me a staunch advocate of public education.)
My only hope for you is to that you relearn humility as an antidote to your pride.
Remember that pride does not simply come before a fall; pride is the fall.
Posted by: Angry Conservative | September 4, 2010 at 11:31 AM
Both Sally and Joseph made humorous comments.
Unfortunately for Sally, I don't think she had her tongue in her cheek she made hers.
Posted by: Philip Lillingston | September 4, 2010 at 04:37 PM
Angry - the ten commandments are obvious ethical ideas (don't steal or murder, especially from your neighbour) with deep roots coupled with special pleadings for worshiping a given God (the Jewish one). They are hardly an inspired contribution to humanity and are more topical because God suposedly carved them on tablets that Moses managed to drop. God then kindly provided a second copy. In terms of ideas however they really just say don't be a thug. A good idea but not something I we need God to tell us. Seriously as a society we could have reasoned out that much on our own pretty quickly.
Posted by: TerjeP | September 4, 2010 at 07:04 PM
p.s. And "don't have slaves" is one God forgot to tell us.
Posted by: TerjeP | September 4, 2010 at 07:06 PM
>>"the ten commandments are obvious ethical ideas (don't steal or murder, especially from your neighbour) with deep roots coupled with special pleadings for worshiping a given God (the Jewish one)."
I have noted that the academic discourse has shifted in recent times. It's now heresy within academia to use the word "moral." Instead, people must use the word "ethical." At face value, it may appear to be a subtle change but it's actually a huge shift. Ethics is the preferred term of atheists and godless people because they know that morality presupposes the existence of God and that genuine morality necessitates the belief in objective moral truth; otherwise it's just a vapid assortment of individual preferences for decision-making.
Of course, the fact that atheists and post-modernist academics don't like morals does not remove the existence of objective moral truth. It's still there; they just deny it because they deny God and reject objective value.
-----
To suggest that the Ten Commandments "are hardly an inspired contribution to humanity" is probably one of the dumbest comments I've read in a long time.
To go further and suggest that "as a society we could have reasoned out that much on our own pretty quickly" is a reflection of the hubris that lies at the core of the atheist mind.
Don't ever forget that Communism and the Third Reich were based on the apparently inviolable 'reason' of man without need of God.
-----
Atheism, by definition, is anti-semitic. The Jewish people were God's original chosen people. Atheists reject God and so, by extension, they reject that fundamental claim that is at the heart of Jewish identity.
Posted by: Angry Conservative | September 5, 2010 at 12:20 PM
Sure AC...in the same way that being religious means you advocate slavery.
Posted by: Vikas Nayak | September 5, 2010 at 12:29 PM
>>"Sure AC...in the same way that being religious means you advocate slavery."
Please point out to me where in the Catechism of the Catholic Church it endorses slavery.
Posted by: Angry Conservative | September 5, 2010 at 12:51 PM
What sort of people are radical libertarians?
Well, let's see. Mid 30s, 'conventional' marriage with two young children living in a country town in south Queensland. 15 years in the army, working class background, employed as an engineer, irregular church attendee (atheist, but acknowledging the Judeo-Christian basis of western society and especially its value in raising children) and active in local community groups, donated to charity consistently for nearly 20 years.
And of course voted Libs, prior member and supported one campaign as a volunteer. Tony's done a good job and is worthy of support but if all my side of the team is going to get is empty throw-away phrases from Big Joe and the loose promise that under the Libs there will always be lower taxes and more freedom than Labor, then perhaps the Libs shouldn't take my support for granted going forward.
Posted by: Michael Sutcliffe | September 5, 2010 at 12:52 PM
The same place it says Atheists are anti-semitic.
Posted by: Vikas Nayak | September 5, 2010 at 12:54 PM
p.s. And "don't have slaves" is one God forgot to tell us.
I sat in an Anglican sermon in the early 90's in Sydney where the minister preached that slavery wasn't as unreasonable that we thought and was like a student working for a company in return for a scholarship.
I was involved in the Sydney Church of Christ at the time and I remember thinking those fundamentalists might be a bit crazy, but these Anglicans seem to be going right off the rails!
Posted by: Michael Sutcliffe | September 5, 2010 at 12:58 PM
>>Of course, the fact that atheists and post-modernist academics don't like morals does not remove the existence of objective moral truth.
There are plenty of academic arguments made for the existence of objective moral truth that do not rely on God. Sure, there are also many made for moral relativism, but atheism and moral relativism are not mutually inclusive.
It is simply a matter of what constant you use to provide the basis for your morality. Christians use God's word, others use logic/mathematics. But proponents on either side have a basis for their claim to objective morality, as long as they consistently use whatever constant they claim it stems from, whether it be God's word or whatever axioms the atheist uses.
There are plenty of christians who have used God's word to justify a dubious morality, and plenty of atheists who have logically justified their own dubious morality. I do not believe a moral philosophy is inherently bad or unable to claim objectivity simply because it does not use God's word as its axiom.
Posted by: Graham | September 6, 2010 at 10:54 AM
Graham, if you don't believe in God, your conception of moral truth is thereby subjective.
Posted by: Angry Conservative | September 6, 2010 at 11:09 AM
No, it's not. That's simply incorrect.
A subjective morality specifically states that there is no objective moral truth, no constant, that it is relative.
This is completely different to someone who makes a claim to morality based on the laws of nature, for instance, or some other axiomatic system of logic. That is still a claim to objectivity, and it has as much basis as one made from God's word, which is simply another system of logic based on particular axioms. They both have particular "constants" which give them their claim to objectivity, but with or without a God as that constant, they're both claiming an objective moral truth that exists independent of the human mind.
Posted by: Graham | September 6, 2010 at 11:17 AM
Angry - your belief in God is obviously subjective because there is no God. It is only your belief in God that keeps you blind to this reality. I pity you and kind of understand why you're angry.
Posted by: TerjeP | September 6, 2010 at 02:08 PM
>>"Angry - your belief in God is obviously subjective because there is no God. It is only your belief in God that keeps you blind to this reality. I pity you and kind of understand why you're angry."
Sorry Terje, you can't make a subjective comment to try and override an objective truth. I pity you for your pride and rejection of God. Humility and worship of Him is your only hope of salvation.
As for the statement that I'm "angry", I should explain that I use the pseudonym Angry Conservative on this blog site, although any person who knows me understands that only one part of this description is actually true. ;-)
Posted by: Angry Conservative | September 6, 2010 at 04:07 PM
Angry, lots of us here don't believe in god but respect the right of others to think otherwise. Even you must agree that your belief in god should not be forced on others and no political debate can be considered to encompass all of society if it's based on the perspective of any particular god.
Christian principles and christian heritage are all great. The continuing of a christian culture for those that want it is fine. That's all part of who we are. But the idea of god defining right from wrong can never be a basis for our society. It's foolish to continue to invoke in a political debate and discredits your position.
Posted by: Michael Sutcliffe | September 6, 2010 at 05:18 PM
Thanks for the interesting article. Food for thought.
Posted by: Abu Nudnik | September 7, 2010 at 07:20 AM
>>"But the idea of god defining right from wrong can never be a basis for our society."
Michael, if you don't believe that God defines right from wrong, then you believe that humans define it. Hence, you believe that truth is subjective and therefore ultimately relative.
Humans don't create truth. God created the truth and the best that humans can ever do is understand - and try to live by - the truth. The truth is the same for me as it is for you!
BTW, I actually think it's foolish of a person such as yourself to state that you attend Christian church services and yet deny the existence of God.
Why do you attend services of something you don't truly believe in? Are you trying to have an each-way bet?
Posted by: Angry Conservative | September 7, 2010 at 10:35 AM
>>Michael, if you don't believe that God defines right from wrong, then you believe that humans define it. Hence, you believe that truth is subjective and therefore ultimately relative.
Again AC, you're wrong. The argument for a Godless objective truth is not that "humans define it", it's still that it exists external to the human mind, it simply places its source as something other than God - the laws of the Universe for instance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_universalism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_realism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_absolutism
Read.
Posted by: Graham | September 7, 2010 at 02:07 PM
"Could those writers using offensive language, please desist."
No. Because the article is dubious, odious, poisonous, freedom hating crap.
If the editors at Menzies House continue to essentially permit the publication of articles which eschew the protection of free enterprise and civil liberties, you'll only have the CDP, DLP and Family First loonies left in the audience of about seven people.
If anyone thinks Rand was stupid, read "Capitalism, The Unknown Ideal"
It is simply a brilliant book dealing with real problems of policy.
I haven't bothered reading her non fiction. She seemed like a wholly thorny character to deal with.
Posted by: . | September 8, 2010 at 07:56 PM
>>" it simply places its source as something other than God - the laws of the Universe for instance."
That's amazing. You don't believe in God but you effectively countenance the notion that objective moral truth can come out of thin air in the universe. Because if "the laws of the Universe" are there and there is no God, from what do those moral laws derive other than thin air or the minds of men, the latter of which renders those laws subjective.
Swallow your male pride and worship God.
Fear God and keep His commandments and you won't go far wrong.
Posted by: Angry Conservative | September 8, 2010 at 08:11 PM
"You don't believe in God but you effectively countenance the notion that objective moral truth can come out of thin air in the universe. "
It can. Aquinas was quite the scholar.
Posted by: . | September 9, 2010 at 12:36 AM
Firstly your comment that I do not believe in God is yet another assumption on your behalf, and one that is quite incorrect. I would consider myself an agnostic in the strongest sense of the word. In fact I believe this to be the only rational position to take.
Secondly I didn't say I advocated the existence of objective moral truth. I find it quite a complex topic, and not one in which I have established a solid position as of yet. However, there are strong arguments for it, arguments you have neither bothered to read nor understand. You simplify an extraordinarily complex topic rather flippantly, in my opinion, and that's indicative in your use of loaded terms like "thin air".
Actually your position that moral truth stems from God is basically very similar to someone's position that moral truth stems from the immutable laws of our Universe. Deism would suggest that it is those laws, and the harmony of existence, that actually IS God. Of course your theism says God, as a separate entity, created those laws and that harmony, and moral truth with it.
The problem with both of these is that they both suggest something sprang from "thin air" (your words, not mine), whether it be the Universe or God. So for you to reject the possibility of one, when it relies on a similar logic to your own, smacks of inconsistency.
Posted by: Graham | September 9, 2010 at 11:23 AM
My life selfish? Maybe, but it's definitely not empty. I have friends and family that I care deeply about, I have a great social life and want to put aside a lot of time for charity in my future. Believing/disbelieving a certain holy scripture doesn't automatically put you into a particular box. For every douchebag atheist you can name, I can probably name just as many if not more douchebag theists :/
Posted by: Steve | September 9, 2010 at 08:19 PM
>>"It can. Aquinas was quite the scholar."
Where did St Thomas Aquinas, in any of his writings, say that objective moral truth can -or does - come from anything or anyone other than God?
Posted by: Angry Conservative | September 9, 2010 at 08:32 PM
>>"Actually your position that moral truth stems from God is basically very similar to someone's position that moral truth stems from the immutable laws of our Universe."
Of course it is similar. That's because the "immutable laws of our Universe" obviously come from God. They don't come from thin air and they don't come from the mind of man, so where else would they logically come from?
-----
>>"You simplify an extraordinarily complex topic"
Thank you Graham. That is high praise indeed.
Posted by: Angry Conservative | September 9, 2010 at 08:39 PM
"Where did St Thomas Aquinas, in any of his writings, say that objective moral truth can -or does - come from anything or anyone other than God?"
This is so utterly dull. A creationist/theist is always going to argue everything comes from God or a choice to make God absent.
Well duh.
Aquinas raised the bar in religious scholarship because he used universal logic to put forward arguments, and not rely on mantra/creationist chains of reasioning.
Posted by: . | September 10, 2010 at 01:06 PM
>>They don't come from thin air and they don't come from the mind of man, so where else would they logically come from?
But it collapses in the same paradox. Your God "comes from thin air" and moral truth stems from it. The laws of the universe come from "thin air" and moral truth stems from it. They're both unsatisfactory.
Posted by: Graham | September 10, 2010 at 01:08 PM
>>"This is so utterly dull."
That's an opinionative comment. It's not an answer to the question I asked.
----
>>"Aquinas raised the bar in religious scholarship because he used universal logic to put forward arguments, and not rely on mantra/creationist chains of reasioning."
I also think Aquinas raised the bar through his "Just War" theory. It meant that Catholics can actually go to war for their nation and, at the same time, not be at war with their conscience.
I commend you for appreciating Aquinas. If you understand Aquinas, you understand the Catholic Church. You don't have to be a Catholic, you don't even have to like Catholics, but you will understand the Church and her faith and moral doctrines if you have understood Aquinas.
Posted by: Angry Conservative | September 10, 2010 at 05:04 PM
>>"But it collapses in the same paradox. Your God "comes from thin air" and moral truth stems from it. The laws of the universe come from "thin air" and moral truth stems from it. They're both unsatisfactory."
My moral truth comes from Christ, the Son of God and the second person of the Trinity. I would hardly refer to Jesus as "thin air".
Posted by: Angry Conservative | September 10, 2010 at 05:17 PM
"I commend you for appreciating Aquinas."
He's an intellectual great if you're religious or not religious.
The problem with your argument is it requires third parties to make relgious assumptions. Some poeple don't even believe Jesus existed.
Posted by: . | September 10, 2010 at 06:18 PM
>>" Some poeple don't even believe Jesus existed."
I think there is pretty conclusive evidence, "if you're religious or not", that a man named Jesus lived in an area named Nazareth 2010 years ago. There are secular universities - including the one I attended - that actually run courses entitled "The Historical Jesus".
Posted by: Angry Conservative | September 10, 2010 at 08:05 PM
The author of this post really hasn't done his homework. To pick out just one problem, as one commentator has already made clear, both Rothbard and Block have been openly complimentary of religion, particularly Catholicism. The Mises Institute, a hardcore anarcho-capitalist site is almost exclusively made up of devout Christians.
Many atheist libertarians have sympathies for conservative thought and see them as natural allies but the intolerance and self righteousness displayed on this site and elsewhere by conservatives makes it hard to see how conservatives and libertarians can ever successfully come together.
Posted by: Jaz | September 11, 2010 at 07:49 PM
"I think"
That's the problem AC (not that you THINK, but that YOU think). I think the evidence is on the side that Jesus was a real person. Even if you're an athiest he was a pretty cool dude.
Others simply are not convinced. The basis of your reasoning can't be an opinion to be convincing, it at least has to be axiomatic.
Referring back to Aqunias: he showed immense intelelctual rigour, not that I'm saying I'm as talented as scholar as he was.
Posted by: . | September 11, 2010 at 10:22 PM
I don't think there are many people who deny that Jesus the man existed. What many people have a problem with is the claim that there is a God, that Jesus was his special envoy and that he preformed miracles and rose from the dead.
The historical account that he was a charismatic faith healer who developed a cult following with his apocryphal preaching of the end of days sounds more believable.
The doctoring of biblical texts to make the life of Jesus fit the prophecy of the Jewish messiah is another story too.
Posted by: Jaz | September 11, 2010 at 10:53 PM
>>" What many people have a problem with is the claim that there is a God,"
That's exactly right. Many people have a "problem" with the claim that there is a God because it means they have to be accountable to someone greater than themselves.
-----
>>"that Jesus was his special envoy and that he preformed miracles and rose from the dead."
How do you "preform" a miracle?
Posted by: Angry Conservative | September 12, 2010 at 09:18 AM
>>"That's the problem AC (not that you THINK, but that YOU think)."
I deliberately used the word "think" as a politely sarcastic manner of letting you know that Jesus was an actual person to rebut your statement @6:18pm that said "Some poeple don't even believe Jesus existed."
Despite being unable to articulate my reasoning as well as Aquinas, my reasoning is based on the same philosophical principle: Prima Causa
Posted by: Angry Conservative | September 12, 2010 at 09:27 AM
"I deliberately used the word "think" as a politely sarcastic manner of letting you know that Jesus was an actual person to rebut your statement @6:18pm that said "Some poeple don't even believe Jesus existed.""
Then you did not understand what I plainly meant. You're also inferring they're being unreasonable for thinking in a such a way. The evidence is not as simple as running through some logic problems, it is based on historical evidence, and opinion isn't possible to judge. We're really just guessing that they are being unreasonable.
I still don't know how far you can get if just rely on people being the same relgion as you as being the reason why they should take your side. Aquinas only discarded natural reasoning for topics like life after death and the sacraments.
"Many people have a "problem" with the claim that there is a God because it means they have to be accountable to someone greater than themselves."
I beg to differ. Many athiests would fear being on trial for an indictable offence as well. God is more merciful than men.
Posted by: . | September 12, 2010 at 09:22 PM
>>"Then you did not understand what I plainly meant. You're also inferring they're being unreasonable for thinking in a such a way. The evidence is not as simple as running through some logic problems, it is based on historical evidence, and opinion isn't possible to judge. We're really just guessing that they are being unreasonable."
I'm not just inferring they're being unreasonable; I am saying THEY ARE being unreasonable if they doubt the historical existence of Jesus.
----
>>"Aquinas only discarded natural reasoning for topics like life after death and the sacraments."
Aquinas understood the limits to natural reasoning. He also used natural reasoning (Five Ways) to show that the existence of God can be proven.
---
>>"I beg to differ. Many athiests would fear being on trial for an indictable offence as well. God is more merciful than men."
This is an issue about the soul and sin. Sure, as you say, an atheist would fear the potential physical/material consequences that could arise for being on trial for an indictable offence (eg. incarceration, death penalty). But would an atheist fear the consequences of committing a sin such as adultery? If so, upon what grounds?
Posted by: Angry Conservative | September 13, 2010 at 12:01 PM
"But would an atheist fear the consequences of committing a sin such as adultery? If so, upon what grounds? "
hahahahaaa! I love how some people need the threat of hell (or possibly jail) to act correctly. As if they'd have no idea what is right and wrong otherwise.
If you can't understand how adultery can rip apart families, relationships and cause emotional damage then that's fine- but don't expect everyone else to be as naive as you about the potential negative consequences for their actions and each person's indivdual responsibilities for their behaviour- god or no god.
Posted by: pk | September 13, 2010 at 12:17 PM
"But would an atheist fear the consequences of committing a sin such as adultery? If so, upon what grounds? "
I'll give you a hint: Christianity properly presented can be sold as being practical.
Do you think Tiger Woods is happy his stunning wife has left him with 750 mln USD+ ???
As pk infers, most people are more emotionally developed than that as well.
Most people want to do good for the sake of it. A few don't. The bad ones are psychppaths. The good ones end up being heroes.
God is potentially infinitely more forgiving (and vindictive) than a Family Court magistrate.
Posted by: . | September 13, 2010 at 02:03 PM
I started my reply, not realising the conversation had turned to Atheism. I had approached the topic from the point of “Extreme philosophies”. My preview was deleted. I hope now that lunch time has passed, we can accept that humanists can do the “right thing” from the principle of inherent morality and that my approach to the topic can be accepted?
>>>I think it is extremely important to remind people about that extreme Libertarian philosophy from to time to time, to unpackage it for a new generation. Further, it is important to bring it out in the open for the generation of post war immigrants who experienced it first hand and for whom it was the ideology of their youth, like Alan Greenspan for example. They say the ideology of one’s youth never leaves you.
The crime of William Hickman in December, 1927, can be added to the exploration of this philosophy in Fyodor Dovstoyevski’s Crime and Punishment, 1865, which has recently been given a re-run in Melbourne. Another American example is the Leopold and Loeb murder of Bobby Francks in 1924.
This was the famous case of American attorney Clarence Darrow, who made the controversial speech including;
"This terrible crime was inherent in his organism, and it came from some ancestor… Is any blame attached because somebody took Nietzsche's philosophy seriously and fashioned his life upon it? It is hardly fair to hang a 19-year-old boy for the philosophy that was taught him at the university?"…Wiki
I understand Brad Pitt is keen to film “Atlas Shrugged”. I would say his enthusiasm for translating this to film is similar to “Inglourious Basterds”. It provides a belated catharsis for the generation of World War II Europeans, who never really had a chance to process the philosophy of their youth.
I might add “Wall Street II: Money Never Sleeps” as another film dealing with ‘Extremity’ from the Economic Liberalism perspective.
Posted by: pip fom Melbourne | September 13, 2010 at 02:49 PM
This article brings a couple of the strands of economic and social libertarianism or philosophies of the “extreme” together, I recommend it to you.
How Ayn Rand caused the GFC
Matt Taibbi
April 25, 2010
http://www.theage.com.au/business/how-ayn-rand-caused-the-gfc-20100424-tknu.html?comments=39
Posted by: pip from Melbourne | September 13, 2010 at 03:14 PM
Here's some more on Rand. Around 3:30 the host speaks to a banker, John Allison the former CEO of BB&T bank, who refused to deal with the types of risky financial engineering that contributed to the GFC. He made a moral choice not to deal with these things based on Rand's philosophy. I think it's safe to assume the conservatives here would call him a 'radical libertarian' as he is a very avid proponent of Ayn Rand.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QmAzEsrtyo>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QmAzEsrtyo
Posted by: Michael Sutcliffe | September 13, 2010 at 03:59 PM
Sorry, functioning link here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QmAzEsrtyo
Posted by: Michael Sutcliffe | September 13, 2010 at 04:00 PM
>>"I'll give you a hint: Christianity properly presented can be sold as being practical."
You don't need to tell me that Christianity is practical. You don't need to preach to the converted.
As C.S Lewis said: "There's only one reason to believe in Christianity. Because it's true."
-----
>>"Do you think Tiger Woods is happy his stunning wife has left him with 750 mln USD+ ???"
So you're saying that loss of money is the central reason why an atheist may fear committing adultery?
-----
>>"Most people want to do good for the sake of it."
One can only do good if he/she is acting in accordance with moral truth. And where does moral truth come from? God
-----
>>"God is potentially infinitely more forgiving (and vindictive) than a Family Court magistrate."
Once again, this is a fear based on material, physical or emotional punishment. It is not based on fear of corruption to the soul that results from breaching the moral law of God.
Posted by: Angry Conservative | September 13, 2010 at 04:26 PM
>>"If you can't understand how adultery can rip apart families, relationships and cause emotional damage then that's fine"
I understand that adultery can rip apart families in the same way as drugs, financial crimes or violence can rip apart families.
The cure is God. Turning away from God and committing sin leads to emotional damage among many other things. Turning back to God and following His moral law is the only true path to redemption.
Posted by: Angry Conservative | September 13, 2010 at 04:34 PM
There is no need for a cure, if you practise prevention by being a resonable person who understands and takes resonsibility for their own actions.
But do whatever helps you out - just don't tell other people they don't know how to be a 'good' person because they don't subscribe to a belief in invisible beings in the sky. It's plain embarassing.
Posted by: pk | September 13, 2010 at 05:23 PM
Pip,
The article from Talabi is pap. Anyone who thought the US mortgage system was a model of free enterprise had to be joking themselves. It has micro level inefficiencies dating back to Roosevelt (i.e no recourse mortgages) and mandated social housing provisions for the GSEs who had huge moral hazard vis a vis credit guarantees from the State.
Not to mention the fiscal and monetary largesse of Bush and Greenspan.
Posted by: . | September 13, 2010 at 05:33 PM