The actual impulse of astonishment that sparks all philosophising is honest bafflement that other people live as they do, writes Wolfram Eilenberger in his new book, The Visionaries.

Its a wild ride through ten of the worst years in the 20th century, spanning the period from 1933, the year Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany, to 1943 and the thick of the second world war. Its told through the occasionally intersecting lives of four brilliant young women philosophers: Simone de Beauvoir and Simone Weil (both French), Russian-American Ayn Rand, and German-Jewish Hannah Arendt, who spent time exiled in France and New York.

Though very different, they all experienced themselves as having been placed fundamentally differently in the world from how other people had been. Eilenberger writes:

All of them were tormented from an early age by the same questions: What could it be that makes me so different? What is it that I clearly cant understand and experience like all the others? Am I really driving down the freeway of life in the wrong direction or is it not perhaps the mass of wildly honking people coming toward me flashing their lights?

I had thought myself reasonably schooled in the writings of these women, but discovered how little I actually knew about them their early work and their jobs, who they knew and loved or loathed, and how the broken stick of 1930s Europe shaped the possibilities for their lives and thought.

Review: The Visionaries: Arendt, Beauvoir, Rand, Weil, and the salvation of philosophy Wolfram Eilenberger, trans Shaun Whiteside (Allen Lane)

The Visionaries traces the gradual unfolding of their systems of thought, including how they changed their minds in response to the radically changed situations they found themselves in.

It builds, to some extent, on Eilenbergers earlier volume, Time of the Magicians: Wittgenstein, Benjamin, Cassirer, Heidegger, and the Decade That Reinvented Philosophy, which followed four brilliant young men who transformed European philosophy in the agonised decade following the first world war.

Both books weave the work of the philosophers with social history, biography, accounts of the cultural and economic environment, and depictions of the quarrels and agreements, friendships and passions that characterised their communities.

The Visionaries opens at the end of 1943. Each character is a very young woman, only in her thirties. But each is already possessed of a trained mind, formidable intelligence and a determination to make sense of life, the universe, and everything.

Beauvoir is writing her first philosophical essay, is about to publish her first novel and has a play in the works. Weil has been asked by occupied Frances shadow government to draw up plans and scenarios for the political reconstruction of France (after her offer to go to the front to die for her ideals was refused).

Rand is awaiting the publication of her debut book, The Fountainhead, a philosophical manifesto masquerading as a novel. And exactly ten years after being driven out of Hitlers Germany, Hannah Arendt is figuring out her next steps, reflecting that in these dark times:

One only had to find the courage in oneself to open ones eyes keep them open to perceive the abysses of ones own time with an alert mind.

After this opening chapter, the narrative jumps back a decade to 1933, and then progresses year by year, back to where it began.

First, we meet Simone de Beauvoir, who with her life partner Jean-Paul Sartre is associated with existentialism (though Eilenberger writes that she avoids the term). Existentialism argues each individual is a free agent, capable of crafting their own identity and existence through acts of the will.

By 1943, Beauvoir was wrestling with one of existentialisms core precepts: how individuals can achieve their best possible lives. She asked, why would someone even attempt this? After all, everything we do comes to nothing because of times inexorable progress and our inevitable death so why do anything at all?

At that stage, her answer is that we should do something because we are in the world as acting creatures, and therefore should grasp our freedom to act while we are able.

Read more: What makes a good life? Existentialists believed we should embrace freedom and authenticity

Simone Weil, whom we meet next, is pretty much the polar opposite of Beauvoir. Indeed, late in the volume Eilenberger notes:

If we compare Weils Notebooks with Beauvoirs diaries and writings from the same time [19411942], we have the extremely strange impression of a telepathic contact between two minds resonating tensely at either end of an infinite piece of string.

Where Beauvoir sees herself as comparatively separate from society, Weil had, as Beauvoir wrote, a heart that could beat right across the world. Despite her physical fraility (and probable anorexia), Weil was possessed by enormous passion and empathy. The wellbeing of everyone else in the world absorbed her thoughts and actions during her short life (she died in 1943).

For years, Weil kept from her wages precisely the minimum sum assigned to unemployed factory workers on state support, while the rest she donate[d] to needy or feeling comrades. And she directed her obedient parents to use their unoccupied apartment to house refugees it once hosted a meeting between exiled communist leader Leon Trotsky and the new high command of the world revolution.

Born into a Jewish family, Weil veered into a passionate and ascetic Christianity. For her, the point of being alive was to disappear into a future of nonbeing, confident that Supernatural love alone creates reality and that our meaning, if one can call it that, is to dissolve into a vessel for Gods will.

This is not a matter of acting, in Beauvoirs terms, but of leaving the world of authenticity and safety in favour of some notion of the divine. (Perhaps unsurprisingly, Weils often brilliant work has attracted less attention than that of her fellow characters in this book.)

Read more: Guide to the Classics: Simone Weils The Need for Roots

Ayn Rand comes next: her familys home and possessions were expropriated in the 1917 October Revolution, on the grounds they were representatives of the Jewish bourgeoisie. They fled to Crimea, then lived in poverty when they returned to St Petersburg (now named Petrograd) in 1921.

The Russian jackboot she escaped was at least as violent as that of the Nazis as Simone Weil too argues in her 1933 discussion about the structural similarity between newly fascist Germany and Stalins Soviet Union.

Rand made it to the United States in 1926, and began a career as a thinker and writer who named her philosophical position objectivism. Where Weil aimed to change the whole world through divine engagement, and Beauvoir perceived freedom as the freedom to act within a community, Rand insisted on:

the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

For man, read Rand. Her most famous character, the architect Howard Roark, the protagonist of The Fountainhead, was after all based on herself. Roark, whose real-life admirers include Donald Trump, was a mouthpiece for objectivism: for reason, for facts, but never for compassion or empathy.

Like an early Margaret Thatcher, Rand built an entire worldview based on there being no society only self-focused, self-seeking individuals, capable of determining who and what they are, in perfect freedom.

Read more: Atlas Shrugged: Ayn Rand's hero burns the world down when he doesn't get his way. Her fans run the world should we worry?

Hannah Arendt, with her mother, had fled Germany in 1933 after they were arrested and interrogated by the Gestapo. For some years, she lived as an exile in France, later escaping to the United States.

Her initial writings explored the uncertainty of freedom in a world where events can strip the individual of identity, of nationality, of freedom and even of life.

Her perspectives differ markedly from both existentialism and objectivism: Eilenberger observes that, for Arendt, self-creation is always contingent on social and cultural conditions, from which no individual can fully escape. It is, she argued poignantly, political power, not self-determination, that sets the limits of our being.

In her case, this was the power of the Nazi machine, which destroyed so many members of her community and which she had so narrowly escaped. Her philosophical concerns were, therefore, far from either individual self-realisation or self-abnegation.

Rather, she was concerned with what an individuals responsibility might be in the face of overwhelming social, political and economic realities.

Read more: The book that changed me: Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem and the problem of terrifying moral complacency

These, in brief, are the four philosophers who galvanised the salvation of philosophy. The lines and turns of their thinking were unpacked and reframed through much of what was going on in the salons of their twenties, or the writings of their thirties.

They were deeply connected, through reading, through shared intellectual concerns, and in some cases through personal relationships, with the great philosophers who preceded them all the way back to Plato in the fourth century BCE and with their contemporaries.

Simone de Beauvoir, for example, was intimately connected to Jean-Paul Sartre in life and work. Ludwig Wittgensteins ethical and intellectual struggles with religion closely parallel Weils own (though there is little evidence they knew each other). Walter Benjamin was Arendts friend throughout their period of exile (and later was the subject of her writings).

Martin Heidegger was the most intertwined with these philosophers. His writings influenced both Weils and Beauvoirs work, particularly into the nature of being, and of human consciousness.

He had also been Arendts teacher (and lover) at university; and though they were on opposite sides of the political divide Heidegger became a Nazi in 1933, the same year Arendt was arrested by the Gestapo Arendt reconnected with him in 1949, and remained his friend.

Read more: Heidegger in ruins? Grappling with an anti-semitic philosopher and his troubling rebirth today

The four women are complex characters, and not always likeable, being neither straightforward, nor straightforwardly admirable. Beauvoir, for example, declined to join a 1934 general workers strike on the grounds she was not part of society. She wrote: The existence of Otherness remained a danger to me. In fact, Otherness was such a danger that at this point, she claimed to identify with no one but Sartre.

Interestingly though, she records a sharp criticism offered her by Simone Weil in a discussion they had about care of the Other, and what matters in the world. For Weil, the most important thing is to feed all the starving people of the earth. For Beauvoir, what matters is:

not to make men happy, but to find the reason for their existence. [Weil] looked me up and down: Its easy to see youve never been hungry, she snapped. Our relations ended right there []

Fair point. Or maybe not all that fair, since by the mid-1930s, Beauvoir was less inclined to consider the world a universe only of Beauvoir-plus-Sartre. Instead, she was beginning to take a more other-oriented, and more sensibly pragmatic, stance.

Perhaps this was motivated by the fact the Beauvoir-plus-Sartre unit had become a polyamorous group, incorporating a worryingly young group of people who participated in their sexual and intellectual lives. The philosophers ease with this complicated sexual engagement, which they characterised as family, did not meet social norms.

Beauvoir was the subject of a year-long investigation, following complaints by the mother of one of the young people that she seduced her students and then passed them on to Sartre. This crime of incitement to debauchery was not proven, for lack of evidence. At the same time, Sartre was sulking about his unsatisfying professional life, and insatiably sexually engaging with (it seems) pretty well anyone who entered his orbit.

Read more: Sex, lies and Hegel: did the intimate lives of philosophers shape their ideas?

I would imagine such experiences exposed Beauvoir to the limitations of both her philosophy and her capabilities. Certainly, such an awareness seems present in her explanation of why she and Sartre declined to join so many of their circle in travelling to Spain to serve in the war against Franco: that they were more likely to be a nuisance rather than a help.

In evidence of this, she pointed out that Weil had gone to Spain to serve in the military, but when the infantry sensibly refused to arm her, Weil instead worked in the kitchens. (Her war ended when she stepped into a pot of boiling oil and was sent back to France to recover.)

Weils passion for others often made her a nuisance rather than a help. She identified strongly with the concept, at least, of the common people, but usually got things wrong. Despite her deeply fragile health, she took a sabbatical from her job as a philosophy teacher to work in a metals factory. This, she thought, would be real life. Eilenberger gently teases this aspiration, but at the same time he notes her action:

stands in a respectable tradition of philosophical experiments whose declared objective was to turn ones back on a presumably alienated world [] Like the Buddha fleeing the temple, or Diogenes in his barrel, or of course Thoreau building his hut on Walden Pond.

It was not an obviously useful experiment. Weil was a hopeless factory worker, causing herself injury, messing up the production line, and worsening her always-frail physical health. She was a hopeless social activist too. After her failure to solve the problems of the Spanish Civil War, and as France edged ever closer to war with Germany, she began developing suites of well-argued and utterly impractical solutions, all of which were rejected.

Arendt seems to have had a much stronger practical streak than did Weil, and a much clearer sense both of the complexities of being a human among other humans, and of the limitations on the fantasies of freedom, than either Beauvoir or Rand.

While she was still living as a refugee in France, she was developing an understanding of what it is to be a pariah: considering how to preserve the only freedom pariahs have the capacity to think for themselves. She was also wondering about what love means.

Read more: Friday essay: Rai Gaita and the moral power of conversation

Reading through this decade, and through the thinking that propelled the four women then, I had to keep reminding myself how dire their living conditions were.

For the three Europeans, the looming dread of war and the nailing down of any freedom or opportunity framed their lives. Ayn Rand may have been far from Hitlers reach, but she was unable to free her parents from the Great Terror of Stalinist Russia, she was having only uncertain success in her writing, and she lived with an unsatisfying husband.

Throughout all this, the Europeans at least sharpened and nuanced their understanding of what it is to be human, the point of being alive, what freedom means, and where our responsibilities lie. In doing so, they laid down some of the intellectual and ethical foundations that have inflected much of the 20th century, and into our time. (Ayn Rands writings, on the other hand, provided a textbook for the US Tea Party efficacious work, no doubt, but not work I can applaud.)

By the end of the book, I found I had changed my mind about the four women primarily in the form of a significantly elevated appreciation for Simone de Beauvoir and an enhanced sympathy for Simone Weil. (I retained my confirmed enthusiasm for Arendt, and my equally confirmed disdain for Rand.)

I also discovered a substantial admiration for the skill of the author and his translator. The clarity of voice, the respect paid to readers and to the four main subjects, and the little glimpses of humour (and larger glimpses of empathy) have left me a fan of this work.

Readers who are not fans of philosophy shouldnt fear the book will tangle them in the weeds of impenetrable lines of thought: its philosophy is made highly accessible. And the human stories, with all their tragedies, irritations and delights, are luminously and empathically crafted.

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Simone de Beauvoir, Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil and Ayn Rand ... - The Conversation Indonesia

Join us for a presentation of intriguing audio excerpts from Ayn Rands in-depth 196061 biographical recollections.

Mark your calendar: On December 9 we will host a special year-end celebration with Tal Tsfany, president and CEO of the Ayn Rand Institute, who will showcase the Institutes successes, followed by an exclusive presentation of Ayn Rands biographical recollections.

These 196061 audio recordings provide an extraordinary window into Rands life, work, and achievements in her own words. At the event, well share a thirty-minute selection curated from nearly forty hours of original audio, housed at the Ayn Rand Archives.

This online event part of our monthly ARI Member Roundtable series is open to supporters who donate $25 or more per month ($300+ year). They will receive an invitation with details on how to join the Zoom space.

Please become an ARI donor or increase your support today to attend this special event.

After the audio presentation, well open breakout rooms hosted by ARI staff and scholars. At the end of our program, youre welcome to stay for the free-form hangout. The Roundtable will last approximately ninety minutes; the hangout will remain open for another hour.

(This audio selection premiered in July at a private event for Benefactors and members of Atlantis Legacy, our planned giving program.)

Join us on Saturday, December 9, at 1:00 pm ET / 10:00 am PT.

If you value the ideas presented here, please become an ARI Member today.

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Exclusive Event: Ayn Rand Speaking about Her Life - New Ideal

Who Was Ayn Rand?

Ayn Rand moved to the United States in 1926 and tried to establish herself in Hollywood. Her first novel, We the Living (1936), championed her rejection of collectivist values in favor of individual self interest, a belief that became more explicit with her subsequent novels The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957). Following the immense success of the latter, Rand promoted her philosophy of Objectivism through courses, lectures and literature.

Ayn Rand was born Alissa Zinovievna Rosenbaum on February 2, 1905, in St. Petersburg, Russia. The oldest daughter of Jewish parents (and eventually an avowed atheist), she spent her early years in comfort thanks to her dad's success as a pharmacist, proving a brilliant student.

In 1917, her father's shop was suddenly seized by Bolshevik soldiers, forcing the family to resume life in poverty in the Crimea. The situation profoundly impacted young Alissa, who developed strong feelings toward government intrusion into individual livelihood. She returned to her city of birth to attend the University of Petrograd, graduating in 1924, and then enrolled at the State Institute for Cinema Arts to study screenwriting.

Granted a visa to visit relatives in Chicago, Alissa left for the United States in early 1926, never to look back. She took on her soon-to-be-famous pen name and, after a few months in Chicago, moved to Hollywood to become a screenwriter.

Following a chance encounter with Hollywood titan Cecil B. DeMille, Rand became an extra on the set of his 1927 film The King of Kings, where she met actor Frank O'Connor. They married in 1929, and she became an American citizen in 1931.

Rand landed a job as a clerk at RKO Pictures, eventually rising to head of the wardrobe department, and continued developing her craft as a writer. In 1932, she sold her screenplay Red Pawn, a Soviet romantic thriller, to Universal Studios. She soon completed a courtroom drama called Penthouse Legend, which featured the gimmick of audience members serving as the jury. In late 1934, Rand and her husband moved to New York City for its production, now renamed Night of January 16th.

Around this time, Rand also completed her first novel, We the Living. Published in 1936 after several rejections, We the Living championed the moral authority of the individual through its heroine's battles with a Soviet totalitarian state. Rand followed with the novella Anthem (1938), about a future collectivist dystopia in which "I" has been stamped out of the language.

In 1937, Rand began researching a new novel by working for New York architect Ely Jacques Kahn. The result, after years of writing and more rejections, was The Fountainhead. Underscoring Rands individualistic underpinnings, the books hero, architect Howard Roark, refuses to adhere to conventions, going so far as to blowing up one of his own creations. While not an immediate success, The Fountainhead eventually achieved strong sales, and at the end of the decade became a feature film, with Gary Cooper in the role of Roark.

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Rand's ideas became even more explicit with the 1957 publication of Atlas Shrugged. A massive work of more than 1,000 pages, Atlas Shrugged portrays a future in which leading industrialists drop out of a collectivist society that exploits their talents, culminating with a notoriously lengthy speech by protagonist John Galt. The novel drew some harsh reviews, but became an immediate best seller.

Around 1950, Rand met with a college student named Nathan Blumenthal, who changed his name to Nathaniel Branden and became the author's designated heir. Along with his wife, Barbara, Braden formed a group that met at Rand's apartment to engage in intellectual discussions. The group, which included future Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, called itself the Collective, or the Class of '43 (the publication year of The Fountainhead).

Rand soon honed her philosophy of what she termed "Objectivism": a belief in a concrete reality, from which individuals can discern existing truths, and the ultimate moral value of the pursuit of self interest. The development of this system essentially ended her career as a novelist: In 1958, the Nathaniel Branden Institute formed to spread her message through lectures, courses and literature, and in 1962, the author and her top disciple launched The Objectivist Newsletter. Her books during this period, including For the New Intellectual (1961) and Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966), were primarily comprised of previously published essays and other works.

Following a public split with Braden, the author published The Romantic Manifesto (1969), a series of essays on the cultural importance of art, and repackaged her newsletter as The Ayn Rand Letter. She continued traveling to give lectures, though she was slowed by an operation for lung cancer. In 1979, she published a collection of articles in Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, which included an essay from protg Leonard Peikoff.

Rand was working on a television adaptation of Atlas Shrugged when she died of heart failure at her home in New York City on March 6, 1982.

Although she weathered criticism for her perceived literary shortcomings and philosophical arguments, Rand undeniably left her mark on the Western culture she embraced. In 1985, Peikoff founded the Ayn Rand Institute to continue her teachings. The following year, Braden's ex-wife, Barbara, published a tell-all memoir, The Passion of Ayn Rand, which later was made into a movie starring Helen Mirren.

Interest in Rand's works resurfaced alongside the rise of the Tea Party movement during President Barack Obama's administration, with leading political proponents like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz proclaiming their admiration for the author. In 2010, the Ayn Rand Institute announced that more than 500,000 copies of Atlas Shrugged had been sold the previous year.

In 2017,Tony-winning director Ivo van Hove reintroduced The Fountainhead to the American public with a production at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Having originated at Toneelgroep Amsterdam in the Netherlands, van Hove's version featured his performers speaking in Dutch, with their words projected onto a screen in English.

Go here to see the original:

Ayn Rand - Books, Quotes & Philosophy - Biography

RELATED POSTS:

Objectivism is important to sales professionals because it's the kind of philosophy that, if you believe in it, you're going to screw up your ability to sell effectively. As a profession, Sales has moved beyond the attempt to manipulate people selfishly for one's own ends, which is how Objectivism plays itself out in the real world.

Most successful sales professionals feel that they are in service to something greater than themselves. Unfortunately, that's not a belief that often shared by their top management, as pointed out in the BNET blog post "Why Do CEOs (Still) Love Ayn Rand." That post summarized Objectivism as:

As a bonus, we won't be forced any longer to listen to newly minted Rand fanboys drone on and on and on and on about how much more enlightened they are than the rest of us hoi-polloi. Puleeze! (eye roll)

NOTE: If you want an example of the kind of behavior you can expect from Rand-influenced CEOs (as well as other assorted follies) check out these posts:

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Top 10 Reasons Ayn Rand was Dead Wrong - CBS News

Welcome back to Reading the Weird, in which we get girl cooties all over weird fiction, cosmic horror, and Lovecraftianafrom its historical roots through its most recent branches.

This week, we cover Molly Tanzers Grave-Worms, first published in the Joseph Pulvers 2015 Cassildas Song anthology. Spoilers ahead!

To desire is to live, and to live is to desire.

Docia Calderan ambitious mogul with a penchant for making suits look wholly femininemeets Roy Irving at a mayoral fund-raiser where only they oppose a new courthouse statue. What do lions drinking with jackals have to do with Justice? They discuss joint business ventures over dinner at Delmonicos while the pheromones fly. Yet the restaurants emptiness disturbs her. Lately shes noticed a strange lethargy in New York, with few people braving the streets. The pall extends to her enjoyment of Delmonicos normally excellent fare. Does Roy sense the change?

Have you found the Yellow Sign? Roy responds with a shrug. Its a catchphrase on everyones lips. Nobody knows why people say it. To Docia, it feels like shutting the curtains, locking the doorgoing to sleep.

Outside, clouds obscure stars and moon. It strikes Docia that the city lights are stars, the skyscrapers galaxies. But human will made New York, and nothing can break the citys spirit. A little tipsy, she stumbles. Roy offers to drive her home. Whose home? is her careless reply. He laughs like a living god, and Docia falls into his arms without any fear at all.

So their affair and business partnership begins. Captains of industry, they both want more, always more. But shes not thrilled when he asks her to a cocktail party hosted by theater critic Fulvius Elbreth. Elbreth approved the justice statue, and has crazy ideas about how kings would be better for America than corporate-backed politicians. But Roy insists that the cost of doing business is association with disagreeable powerbrokers.

Party-bound, Docia feels the citys darker than usual. Roy notices nothing amiss. Elbreths apartments full of self-proclaimed intellectuals. The critic is in on every conversation, doling out pithy bons mots. Docia overhears him crowning abstraction as the only acceptable form of modern artistic expression. Representational art is pure arrogance, Elbreth explains, because nothing is knowable enough to represent. Docia argues. Elbreth glibly twists her words, and she escapes to the balcony. Another womans there, smoking. Docia politely nods, then stares at the oddly dim city and cloud-masked sky. When was the last time she saw stars?

Dont let them bother you, the woman says in a clipped, aristocratic accent. Her tailored suit and expression of intense determination impress Docia. Docia, the woman says, is a creator. Critics are destroyersno, less, for they lack will. Theyre grave-worms, feasting on whats already dead.

Though unnerved by the womans familiarity, Docia accepts the most delicious cigarette shes ever smoked. She asks the woman if she senses the gathering darkness. It is darker, the woman says, but as for why: Have you found the Yellow Sign?

The woman vanishes as Elbreth comes out to apologize. Though they differ, Docias opinions on art intrigue him, and hed like to invite her to attend a play, one with a blinkered history thats banned in Europe. Docia agrees to the not-dateElbreth knows shes seeing that meathead Irving.

Docia examines the perfect cigarette butt for a brandmark, and finds a strange golden insignia. She pockets the butt to show to a tobacconist. When Roy hears about Docias not-date, he angrily dumps her. She shrugs off the rejection, more interested in the insignia. Have you found the Yellow Sign?

The tobacconist cant identify the stub mark. Moreover, he doesnt want to find out what it means, and she should take it away! Docias not-date with Elbreth starts out pleasantly. The first act of the play isnt the diatribe Docia expected, but poetry and action more confounding than alarming. Elbreth, however, emerges for intermission pale and sweaty. Somethings wrong, he says. He has to go; Docias willingness to stay makes him flee without hat or coat.

She sits through the remaining acts riveted, entranced. The plays not one of Elbreths abstractions, but more real than anything shes experienced before. She seems to exit the theater alone. The city is silent and dark, but the clouds have dispersed, and the night sky greets her with black stars brighter than any artificial, earthly light and uncounted moons. The constellations are foreign, but Docia laughs. Shes lost her whole life, and finally found her way.

The balcony woman appears, leaning on a streetlight, her suit looking like priestly vestments. Did Docia like the play, she asks, the flash of her yellow eyes blinding. Docia thinks so.

Youre not someone who appreciates uncertainties, the woman says. Lets have a cigarette and talk about it. Docia accepts. Content with silence, she exhales smoke through which she sees that the strange gold insignia is even brighter than the ember.

Whats Cyclopean: Docias fond of straightforward similes: invitations like poisonous snakes, robes crumpled like flowers after a rainstorm, witticisms as light and frothy as egg white on a Ramos Gin Fizz. Her first exposure to the sign moves her to less marked metaphors: eyes as starless pools, starless skies as clotted. The play itself brings her to direct, effusive description: swirling constellations and radiance undreamed. And then to silence.

The Degenerate Dutch: Roy plays at sexism with Docia, or maybe hes not playing. Its all part of being businessmenforgive me, business-people.

Weirdbuilding: We all know the title on that theatrical handbill. And the sign on that cigarette.

Libronomicon: Critic Elbreth, despite his fondness for abstract art, also enjoys political and theatrical classics: he uses a review of Hamlet to advocate for American monarchy. There are probably easier contexts in which to do that, but you do you.

The King in Yellow, meanwhile, reminds Docia of Antigone.

Madness Takes Its Toll: Hearing about the yellow sign, at first, makes Docia feel like lying down shutting the curtains going to sleep. And it does, indeed, seem to spread a pall of apathy and depression over New York.

Ruthannas Commentary

Have you seen the yellow sign? And if youve seen it, do you have any clue what it means?

In Chamberss original, the play and the sign bring both madness and their own reality, the ambiguity never resolved. Laws comes down on the own reality side, with the plays readers immanentizing the future of Repairer of Reputation into (and then out of) existence. Walterss Black Stars on Canvas makes Carcosa a source of poetic madness and inspiration, while Geist does nothing so linear in translating it to gonzo rock opera. Its a force of destruction and change, creativity and illusionand where the emphasis falls among those four depends on the story.

My previous experience with Tanzer was the delightfully decadent Creatures of Will and Temper, so I went into this story expecting lush sensory detail and Walters-ish artistic sacrifices. I got the lush detail, for sure, as Docia appreciates both her appetites and the things that feed them. But shes no artist: she sees desire as fuel for the ultimate appetite of capitalism. Ironically, given her artistic preferences, those appetites remain abstract. She and Roy are captains of industry, better than kings, and thats all we learn of their business efforts. They share a love of good food and a preference for representational art. And at the storys outset, neither of them has seen the yellow sign.

Theyre growing unusual in that ignorance, though. Our first hint about the role of all things yellow is a disturbing change to the City That Never Sleeps. New York grown quieter, duller, starless even by comparison with its usual light pollution, is a worrisome imagethe moreso now, having seen how much and how little a pandemic lockdown does to the citys spirit.

Carcosa takes at least two forms here. First, theres the gold-sigiled cigarette that leaves all other cigarettes tasting ashen. This seems fully in keeping with the effect on the city: a force for sapping vitality. But maybe its more complicated than that. Because the signs second form is the play itself. And at least for Docia, the play pulls her into another reality entirely, one with all the passion and pleasure thats fading from her original world.

So is the sign replacing reality with delusion? Is it vampirizing our worlds energy and light to keep Carcosa alive, or to bring it into being? Is there only one world, experienced differently by those who have and havent encountered the transformative power of yellow?

Fulvius Elbreth recognizes the play as dangerousenough to flee in the teeth of a review deadline. But we already know hes dubious about realism, preferring abstraction to the lies of meaning. He speaks for the gospel of cosmic horror: that rationality is irrational and human-scale understanding an illusion. Maybe this inocculates him against the plays parasitic certaintyor maybe it keeps him from appreciating truth when he encounters it.

What about the unnamed harbinger of Carcosa? (Ill call her Cassilda.) Maybe shes priming people for the play with her perfect cigarettes. Or maybe shes spreading her worlds reality through a thousand different yellow-signed experiences, a thousand flavors of fairy food and drink and drug to leave users dissatisfied with everything but the flash of her yellow eyes.

And shes the one who drops the storys title. She accuses critics, Elbreth in particular, of being grave-worms who feast on that which is already dead. When you think about it, thats an awfully judgmental way to describe someone who evaluates art. Elbreth is no Pierce, living only to describe fault in the most vicious way possible. Indeed, Docias original issue is with the art he likes.

It seems to me that Cassildas accusation carries a sinister implication: that the art of this world is already dead. That Elbreth is stuck with beautiful things that are only growing dimmerthings that Cassilda herself is working to destroy.

Which means that Carcosa, too, is feasting on the dead. And that for all their pleasure and intensity, the cigarettes and the infamous play are the real grave-worms.

Annes Commentary

Any worthwhile afterlife must host a coffeehouse frequented by artists of every era and ilk. When the place gets overcrowded, the oddest couples may share tables. There, way in the back, between the rack of coffee-stained newspapers and the shelf of donated books, Im spotting Robert W. Chambers with

Ayn Rand?

Yes, Ayn Rand. Theres no mistaking that sensible, side-parted bob and those eyes expressive of intense determination, a single-mindedness of purpose. The ashtray in front of her is full of stubs, the brandmark of which I cant make out from the land of the living. And yes, the celestial coffeehouse allows smoking; all the patrons being dead, the management figures what harm can it do.

The ethereal vibrations of Chambers and Rands interaction must have reached Molly Tanzer, whose Grave-Worms resembles a collision between The King in Yellow and Atlas Shrugged. That is, what would have happened if Dagney Taggart found hearts home not in Galts Gulch but in Lost Carcosa?

I picked up Randian vibes in Tanzers first paragraph, which in describing Docia Calder echoes Rands descriptions of both Dagney and The Fountainheads Dominique Francon. Roy Irving comes along to represent business tycoon Hank Reardon; later we get Fountainheads architectural critic Ellsworth Toohey in theater critic Fulvius Elbreth. Fulvous refers to a range of colors from yellow-brown to tawny to dull orange a Fulvius cannot rival the real-gold yellow of Balcony-Womans cigarette insignia, any more than Ellsworth Toohey can rival Rands hypermasculine heroes.

Along with hints from fashion, hairstyles, and the pervasive cigarette puffing, Docia and Roys date at Delmonicos sets the period of the story in the mid-twentieth century, paralleling the felt period of Atlas Shrugged; the midcentury incarnation of Delmonicos was where the elite met to chow down on the signature steaks, Lobster Newberg and Baked Alaska. Thematically more important is the atmospheric similarity of Tanzer and Rands New Yorks, languishing in the grip of failing vitality and a general emotional/spiritual malaise. People express their foreboding with catchphrases of unknown origin, though their true meanings will be crucial to the story. Atlas opens with Who is John Galt? Roy carelessly throws out the question Docia detests: Have you found the Yellow Sign?

Maybe the Yellow Sign makes Docia think of the yellow peril, that Western fear that the barbarian hordes of Asia were poised to destroy the white mans superior culture. Not that all whites are dependable. In Atlas and Grave-Worms a major threat to our way of living is the spread of Socialism even in Europe. Docia assumes that Elbreths play is banned there for anti-Socialist sentiments that would offend the delicate sensibilities of those snooty soap-dodgers.

At the heart of Dagny Taggarts and Docias disgust with modern philosophy is its rejection of reason and its elevation of the subjective over the objective. To accept with Fulvius Elbreth that only in abstraction can we truly show reality is a moral as well as an intellectual sin. Maybe Elbreth can slither by (wormlike) by suggesting he applies his principles to Art, not reality. Balcony Woman doesnt buy it. To her, Docia is Rands epitome of humankind, the Creator, the independent thinker and doer for whom justice is fair exchange for value, with money as the most objective indicator of approval anyone can give another human. Whereas Elbreth the critic is a lower-case destroyer, a grave-worm able to feast only on whats dead.

Which implies that to feast on a living thing, Elbreth and kin must first kill it.

Tanzers most telling reference to Atlas Shrugged lies in how Docia receives the emblem of upper-case Reality in the form of a cigarette brandmark. Searching for John Galt, Dagny Taggart happens upon philosopher Hugh Akston, the last champion of Reason, whos left academia to run an obscure mountain diner. He gives Dagny the best cigarette shes ever tasted; later shell notice that the stub is branded with a golden dollar sign. Sadly, her tobacconist friend is unable to discover the cigarettes origin; his sincere opinion is that it comes from nowhere on this Earth! The golden dollar sign turns out to be the emblem of Galts Gulch and its inhabitants, the stalwarts of objectivism.

Docias mark turns out to be the Yellow Sign, emblem of Carcosa and the King in Yellow. The King in Grave-Worms takes the curious form of Balcony Woman who, when revealed under black stars and radiant moons, may be Docia idealized, a woman who wears her suit so well it resembles priests vestments or royal robes of state.

Whats it all mean, this fusion of Chambers and Rand into Tanzer? Whos John Galt, and how about that Yellow Signfound it yet? I guess Galt represents the Real on Earth, whereas the Sign leads beyond Earth into an Ultimate Reality in which Docia can finally feel really right and really content and smoke only the really best without health repercussions, forever.

So one of Cassildas happier endings?

Is it?

[ETA: This is what I get for avoiding Atlas Shrugged! But put our analyses together, and I think you get a really interesting critique of Randian objectivism. Or just capitalism. RE]

Next week, we continue N. K. Jemisins The City We Became with the 2nd Interruption and Chapter 4. Maybe Aislyn will meet someone more trustworthy? But probably not trust them

Ruthanna Emryss A Half-Built Garden comes out July 26th. She is also the author of the Innsmouth Legacy series, including Winter Tide and Deep Roots. You can find some of her fiction, weird and otherwise, on Tor.com, most recently The Word of Flesh and Soul. Ruthanna is online on Twitter and Patreon, and offline in a mysterious manor house with her large, chaotic, multi-species household outside Washington DC.

Anne M. Pillsworths short story The Madonna of the Abattoir appears on Tor.com. Her young adult Mythos novel, Summoned, is available from Tor Teen along with sequel Fathomless. She lives in Edgewood, a Victorian trolley car suburb of Providence, Rhode Island, uncomfortably near Joseph Curwens underground laboratory.

The rest is here:

Lions Drinking With Jackals: Molly Tanzer's Grave-Worms - tor.com

For billionaire Ken Griffin, it was well worth spending $54 million to ensure he and other rich Illinoisans wouldn't have to pay more tax.

By the time Illinois voters streamed into voting booths on Election Day in 2020, Griffin, then Illinois' wealthiest resident, had made sure they'd heard plenty about why they should not vote to raise taxes on him and the state's other rich people. His tens of millions paid for an unrelenting stream of ads and flyers against an initiative on that year's ballot, which would have allowed Illinois lawmakers to join 32 other states in setting higher tax rates for the wealthy than for everyone else.

In the end, Griffin spent about $18 for every one of the 3.1 million votes against the initiative. After initial optimism about its prospects, the measure came up hundreds of thousands of votes short and went down to defeat.

Rarely does the public get a clear view of the payoff for wealthy Americans who put their money down to achieve a political outcome. But in this case, ProPublica's trove of IRS data can provide crucial context for the ballot fight. For Griffin and many of his fellow ultrawealthy Illinoisans, spending even such a vast amount was well worth it when compared with what a tax hike might have cost them.

According to the data, Griffin averaged an annual income of $1.7 billion from 2013 to 2018. That was the fourth-highest in the country, behind only the likes of Bill Gates.

Using that average income as a guideline, the new state tax increase, which aimed to raise the rate from 5% to 8% on the highest incomes, would have cost Griffin around $51 million every year in extra tax. In especially good years in 2018, Griffin reported income of almost $2.9 billion he might have been forced to pay more than $80 million more.

A Citadel spokesperson responding on Griffin's behalf pointed out that, according to ProPublica's previously published data, Griffin paid the second-highest amount of taxes of any American from 2013 to 2018. "Over the past decade," he said in a statement, "it is almost a certainty that Ken has been the largest individual taxpayer in the State of Illinois a state notorious for profligate spending and rampant corruption." Griffin has said he's not against raising taxes; he opposed the measure, he added in his statement, because "Illinois needs to put its fiscal house in order before burdening hard-working families with yet more taxes."

The state's current flat tax rate of 5% is far below the top rates in other large states run by Democrats like California and New York and comparable to those in some Republican-led states like Utah. Advocates for raising the rates on the wealthy in Illinois say the state needs additional revenue, pointing to its regular budget deficits and deep pension debts.

Not all Griffin's political bets pay off. A candidate for Illinois governor he supported with tens of millions of dollars went down to defeat in June's Republican primary. Meanwhile, even though the income tax initiative was defeated, Griffin announced last month that he was moving Citadel's headquarters to Miami and relocating there himself.

Though no other donor to the anti-tax fight came close to matching the tens of millions that Griffin gave, others made contributions that were more than what most Illinois households earn in a year. ProPublica analyzed the tax data of nine other ultrawealthy supporters of Griffin's anti-tax campaign. According to our estimate, this group of heirs and business owners, which includes some of the wealthiest people in Illinois, can expect to see a healthy return on their contributions and save millions in taxes over the coming years.

The math behind our estimate is simple: Wealthy Illinoisans will save about 3% of their income, because that was the size of the proposed tax increase on the wealthy. That's essentially how Illinois' state income taxes work for Illinois residents. With some adjustments, a state tax rate is applied to the income listed on their federal returns. ProPublica contacted all 10 of the anti-tax donors mentioned in this article and the accompanying chart. None challenged the methodology used to estimate their tax savings.

Richard Uihlein, who along with Griffin has emerged as a conservative megadonor on the national stage, pitched in $100,000 to the anti-tax campaign for him a modest amount given his average annual income of $492 million in recent years. Through his family foundation, Uihlein has also given millions of dollars to the Illinois Policy Institute, a small-government group that fought the graduated tax plan. Uihlein's average income would lead to about $15 million of annual tax savings from the defeat of the ballot initiative.

Sam Zell, the real estate mogul known in Chicago for putting together a leveraged buyout of the Tribune Company that preceded its bankruptcy, gave $1.1 million. Based on his recent income, he would save $1.6 million in taxes each year. A spokesperson for Zell declined to comment.

Patrick Ryan made his billions in insurance, and Northwestern University's football stadium and basketball arena bear his family's name, thanks to the hundreds of millions he's given the school. He gave $1 million. His recent income suggests $2.1 million in annual tax savings.

Richard Colburn, whose billionaire family owns the electrical parts maker CED, gave $500,000 to the anti-tax campaign, which would help save him $5.5 million each year in taxes, according to our estimates. In an email message to ProPublica, Colburn said his reasons for opposing the graduated tax were simple: It would have "eaten substantially" into his investment earnings, some of which he passes on to a nonprofit foundation he manages. Like Griffin, he contended the state would not have used the money well.

"Though I enjoy living in the Chicago area, I could save immensely by moving to a lower-tax state, and therefore I 'invested' to limit the temptation on me to relocate," Colburn wrote. "Another element of my 'investment' stems from my desire to limit the mis-spending by the State of Illinois that occurs every time Springfield has extra money." (His full statement is here.)

Donald Wilson, founder of the trading firm DRW, gave $250,000 to the anti-tax campaign. That donation in particular looks modest when weighed against his potential tax savings: Based on Wilson's average annual income of $114 million, the proposed tax increase would have cost him $3.5 million more every year.

Some of the contributions to the anti-tax campaign came from trusts, special legal entities often used by the wealthy to hide or protect assets, as well as to avoid the estate tax. Richard Stephenson, founder of a chain of for-profit hospitals called Cancer Treatment Centers of America, contributed $300,000 through his Celebrate Life Trust. Stephenson is a longtime Republican donor and such an enthusiast of Ayn Rand's message of uncompromising self-interest that he was an executive producer on two movies based on the novel "Atlas Shrugged."

Uihlein, Ryan, Wilson and Stephenson also did not respond to requests for comment.

One $25,000 contribution came from the Philip M. Friedmann Family Charitable Trust. Friedmann made his fortune by selling the greeting card company he co-founded to a private equity firm.

Friedmann's trust, unlike Stephenson's, is a personal foundation. That means Friedmann likely received a tax deduction for donating to his own organization, which then used some of the funds to fight an increase in his taxes.

The contribution to the anti-tax campaign by Friedmann's foundation appears to have violated federal tax law, three nonprofit tax law experts told ProPublica. Personal foundations are prohibited from spending to try to influence legislation, a category that includes contributions to a ballot initiative committee, said Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, a law professor at Notre Dame. Organizations that break that law are required to pay a penalty of up to 25% of the expenditure in addition to attempting to retrieve the money.

Although this prohibition is spelled out on the IRS' online guide for private foundations, "smaller family foundations don't always know the applicable rules," said Ellen Aprill, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University.

Friedmann did not respond to requests for comment.

Illinois didn't have an income tax of any kind until 1969, when a deal between GOP Gov. Richard Ogilvie and Democratic Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley resulted in a flat statewide tax of 2.5% on individuals and 4% on corporations. Some Democrats said the tax disproportionately punished low-income families, and pushed for higher rates on the wealthy. But Republicans and other critics argued for expiration dates or rate limits, warning that otherwise lawmakers would simply keep hiking and expanding income taxes. The following year, a compromise was encoded in the state's updated constitution. It clarified that the General Assembly had the power to impose an income tax but only "at a non-graduated rate."

As the state's fiscal problems grew in the following decades, governors and legislators repeatedly raised the flat tax rate until it was up to 5% on individuals. In 2014, multimillionaire private equity investor Bruce Rauner, a Republican backed by Griffin, was elected governor after promising to slash taxes, and the rate was lowered to 3.75%. But as Rauner fell into a bitter standoff with the Democratic-controlled General Assembly, the state went without a budget for more than two years, leaving it in an even deeper financial hole.

The General Assembly, including some Republicans, voted in 2017 to raise the income tax again, to 4.95% on individuals.

Democrat JB Pritzker, a billionaire investor whose family founded the Hyatt hotel chain, launched his campaign for governor by casting himself as a wealthy man who would fight for the middle class and for a graduated tax that was less burdensome for low-income families than the flat-rate system. Rauner vowed to stop him. Their 2018 campaigns spent more than $250 million combined, including $22.5 million that Griffin gave to Rauner, before Pritzker won that November.

With the support of a committed and rich governor, a graduated income tax suddenly seemed possible in Illinois.

"That created a bunch of new momentum," said Ralph Martire, executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, a think tank that argued in favor of a graduated income tax. "That was enough political support to really get the grassroots groups working on it."

Outside of a special convention, both the Illinois House and Senate must sign off on a state constitutional amendment by three-fifths majorities. Voters then need to approve it, either by a clear majority of all voters casting ballots in a general election or a three-fifths majority of those voting on the measure itself.

In 2019 the Senate and then the House each met that threshold, passing a measure that would eliminate the graduated income tax ban if voters approved an amendment. Companion legislation laid out what the new tax schedule would be: Rates would either drop or remain at 4.95% for people reporting income up to $250,000; they would climb from there, to a rate of 7.99% on individuals earning above $750,000 and couples above $1 million. The top rate was within the range of those in other Midwest states with graduated systems higher than Missouri's but lower than Iowa's.

Supporters and opponents then had more than a year to make their cases.

Illinois election laws set some limits on campaign donations and spending. But the rules are riddled with loopholes, and they impose no limits on political committees formed to advocate for or against ballot initiatives like the income tax proposal.

Opponents of the graduated income tax formed at least five different campaign committees that raised nearly $63 million altogether. The best funded, by far, was the Coalition to Stop the Proposed Tax Hike Amendment, which collected almost $60 million, including the $54 million from Griffin. The coalition received most of its remaining money from other billionaires and millionaires, according to state campaign donation records.

On the other side, Pritzker created the Vote Yes for Fairness committee, plowing $58 million of his own fortune to support the "fair tax" campaign. Apart from Pritzker's donations, the committee received just one $250 contribution, records show.

Griffin also launched other offensives. In October 2020, the Chicago Tribune reported that Griffin had lambasted Pritzker as "a shameless master of personal tax avoidance" in an email to Citadel's Chicago staff.

The bulk of Pritzker's wealth ($3.6 billion, according to Forbes) is in trusts, some domestic and some located offshore. Pritzker has said some were set up by his grandfather. As ProPublica reported last year, it was common for 20th century patriarchs to set up trusts that passed fortunes down through the generations free of estate taxes.

Pritzker has released his personal tax returns, but has not provided detailed information about the trusts. For 2020, Pritzker's office released returns showing $5.1 million in personal income for the governor and his wife, MK. The domestic trusts benefiting the governor also paid $16.3 million in Illinois taxes and $69.6 million in federal taxes in 2020, according to Pritzker spokesperson Natalie Edelstein.

ProPublica's IRS data does not shed light on those trusts. When ProPublica requested further detail, Edelstein said the governor is not releasing documents concerning the trusts because he "is not the only beneficiary, so he does not have authority to release all of the information." She said that the governor had not personally accepted any disbursements from the offshore trusts, instead giving them to charity. She did not address whether the trusts had been set up to avoid estate taxes, only saying they were "established generations ago."

At the height of the graduated income tax campaign, advertisements for and against the initiative seemed to be everywhere in Illinois in mailboxes, online, all over the airwaves.

"You couldn't even watch TV it was just one ad after another," recalled David Merriman, a public administration professor at the University of Illinois Chicago.

Merriman's research had found that Illinois received less revenue from income taxes and placed a higher tax burden on low-income taxpayers than neighboring states with graduated systems, including states led by Republicans. But, perhaps predictably, the ads largely avoided policy discussions in favor of political appeals.

"At the worst possible time, Springfield politicians are pushing a constitutional amendment that would give them new powers to make it easier to raise taxes on all Illinois taxpayers," a narrator in one anti-tax ad declared. "And if there's one thing we know about Springfield politicians, it's that you can't trust them."

The fair-tax campaign accused the rich of trying to fool middle-class families and claimed, based on the state Senate bill that had already passed, that as many as 97% of taxpayers would pay the same or less under the governor's plan.

But voters weren't convinced. Federal investigations of several Chicago and state politicians were making headlines, and Merriman said the graduated tax advocates failed to persuade voters that they would benefit from the amendment. The initiative failed by a vote of 53% to 47%.

"It showed just how distrustful everyone is of the government," he said.

The big money battle has continued in the Illinois governor's race this year. This January, Pritzker deposited $90 million into his own reelection fund the largest single political contribution in Illinois in decades and probably ever. Under state election law, candidates can lift donation limits in a race by funding their own campaigns.

Several of the anti-tax funders contributed large sums to Republicans aiming to unseat Pritzker this fall. Once again, Griffin led the way, spending $50 million, but his handpicked candidate lost the GOP primary last week to Darren Bailey, a right-wing state senator propelled by more than $17 million Uihlein gave to his campaign and an aligned super PAC. Pritzker and the Democratic Governors Association also went head-to-head with Griffin, paying for ads attacking his candidate, Richard Irvin.

Bailey received an endorsement from Donald Trump the weekend before the election and finished with about 58% of the vote. Irvin faded to third place with 15%. In his election night victory speech, Bailey ripped Pritzker as an "out-of-touch, elitist billionaire."

"Do you feel overtaxed?" Bailey called out to his supporters. Their response: "Yeah!"

By then, Griffin had made a big announcement that meant his state tax bill would plummet.

In a letter to Citadel employees, Griffin announced that he was moving the company's headquarters to Miami and that he himself had already moved his family to the area.

Florida does not have a personal income tax. Experts told ProPublica Griffin will still pay some personal income tax in New York and Illinois since Citadel has offices there. But his bill is sure to shrink dramatically, likely saving him tens of millions a year.

In response to ProPublica's questions, Citadel did not address whether taxes motivated his move. Instead, in its statement the spokesperson cited crime concerns as the prime motivator: "Ken left Illinois for a simple reason: the state is devolving into anarchy. Senseless violence is now part of daily life in Chicago."

Griffin's letter to Citadel staff also made no mention of taxes as being a reason for the move. Instead, it rhapsodized about how Miami "embodies the American Dream embracing the possibilities of what can be achieved by a community working to build a future together."

Original post:

Ken Griffin spent $54 million to fight tax hike on the rich. Secret IRS data shows it's paying off - Salon

I rose on Saturday morning with the intent to analyze how this insane Big Ten expansion into Los Angeles could be rationalized and developed into a viable model.

But, the more I consider it, the more I want to see the entire Big Ten acquisition enterprise led by FOX Sports collapse and explode in a massive fireball. And so, I have built a scenario for that vision, one I can root for.

First, an updated review of the landscape as of Saturday night. Several reporters I trust have posted recent key developments:

Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports reported that Oregon and Washington have been informed that the Big Ten is sitting tight for now and is waiting on Notre Dame to decide whether it also will join the B1G.

Scott Dochterman of The Athletic inferred quite logically that FOX is not at all interested in a new B1G West division that would impede USC and UCLA from playing Big Ten East powers Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State more than once every four years. The TV folks want the big-ratings splash games as often as possible.

Influential Portland radio host John Canzano, formerly of OregonLive, wrote an open plea to 84-year-old Nike founder and generous Oregon Ducks benefactor Phil Knight to save whats left of the Pac-12 by encouraging a proactive raid of the Big 12, surmising quite logically that its one conference or the other that will survive. I say, maybe neither, but thats another story.

Sports Illustrateds Pat Forde suggested that, if were really in uncharted fittest-survival mode, whats to stop these budding super-conferences from jettisoning unwanted baggage, schools that have never pulled their weight financially like Purdue and Minnesota and Vanderbilt and Mississippi State?

Its chaos out there, every league and school for itself. There are no rules anymore. Its an Ayn Rand biosphere. And thanks to the body snatching of the SEC and B1G by Disney and FOX and hatching of its larvae inside college football, only one asset matters. Its not tradition or collegiality or rivalries or bands or any of the other facets weve always loved about college sports.

Its about money. Only money.

Here are the architects of this takeover. Take a good look at them. They are most responsible for whats happened to your campus games. Jimmy Pitaro, president of ESPN. Mark Silverman, president of FOX Sports. The former greased the skids for Texas and Oklahoma joining the Southeastern Conference and leaving the Big 12 in ruin. The latter headed up Southern California and UCLA bolting for the Big Ten and leaving the Pac-12 adrift and very likely irrelevant.

ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro (left) and FOX Sports president Mark Silverman (right).ESPN/FOX Sports

This super-league concept is what the money men of European soccer tried to do to the Premier League. It didnt happen because the fans there who love the game even many who wear powerful colors of Chelsea blue and Manchester red stuck up for the smaller poorer clubs of the 20 and shouted down the concept.

But something of that sentiment is missing in the United States. Because we are such a divided nation in so many ways, nobody seems to care about the welfare of anyone else. Get yours, make certain your fence line is secure and screw your neighbor! These are now the bromides of college sports.

I dont sense that many fans of the B1G or SEC care in the slightest that the landscape beyond their ever-growing footprints is being scoured. That the plucky underdogs of Iowa State and Oregon State and, yes, now Pittsburgh, are vulnerable to being washed away by a tidal wave of unchecked greed.

My hope is this: That the incompetent Peter Principle leadership of Kevin Warren is exposed again. That this FOX money grab will blow up in the Big Tens face when all the athletes at USC and UCLA begin to realize what theyve been lassoed into: 12-hour-minimum weekly excursions in planes to and from slate-colored, stratus-clouded upper Midwestern and Eastern outposts. I am hoping for an out-and-out rebellion, that recruiting craters at the Los Angeles schools because word of mouth spreads you dont wanna do this, man. Its brutal.

These are two regional cultures that do not belong together. They are both beautiful in their own rights the diligent windswept plainsmen of the Cornbelt and the flamboyant sun-kissed sons of SoCal. They have zero in common. And what the profiteers of telecasting dont get is, a league must have a culture in common. Its not merely a division of professionals. Its a bunch of college kids still representing a specific slice of the country.

I have a feeling this is not going to work. The network execs have no such premonition because they are soulless opportunists who only understand fiscal metrics. They are merely attempting to group the most valuable assets in the belief that they can maximize profit.

Well then, call me a spread bettor looking for a loss. I think this USC/UCLA acquisition is headed for disaster.

If Warren had the audacity of his predecessor Jim Delany, he wouldve at least gone all in on this western expansion. He wouldve seen the SECs Texas/Oklahoma play with USC/UCLA and raised it with Oregon/Washington/Utah to form an entirely new West division composed fully of Pac-12 members, then made a big swaggering offer to Notre Dame to make 20. If ND refuses, North Carolina is the contingency.

If youre going to do this super-conference move, you do it big and bold and shamelessly. You give the Trojans and Bruins brothers in arms to make them feel included in their new digs. Of course, the FOX boys have already told Warren and the B1G presidents that the Ducks and Huskies and Utes dont provide quite enough bang for the TV buck pro rata, its called in the trade to be worth an equal slice of a diminished pie.

And I dont think Warren has the sort of stones or vision to go against their advice. Hes going to slow play his hand like the donkey he is. And the Big Ten is going to end up with a couple of incongruous ill-fitting members with no Pacific brethren to join them. Its going to suck for them. Actually, its going to suck for everybody.

And so, Im hoping for exactly that a giant failure so dysfunctional and chaotic that it totally implodes. That, by the end of the decade, USC and UCLA are returned in some sort of Western conference along the coast with their neighbors. And the Big Ten recedes back to the cornfields where it belongs.

Thats the thing, though, in this lawless world without borders. Nobody knows who they are anymore. They only care what theyre worth.

More PennLive sports coverage:

Reasons for and residue of USC/UCLA bolt to Big Ten have me conflicted at best, depressed at worst.

Had he been given a chance, Marlin Briscoe could have been a great pro QB, but he was born too soon.

Off Topic: How a PSU academic advisor inspired Wally Richardson 30 years ago to maximize his words.

Read the original here:

Heres hoping this USC/UCLA-Big Ten merger careens off the track, crashes and burns | Jones - PennLive

When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing; when you see that money is flowing to those who deal not in goods but in favours; when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work; and your laws dont protect you against them but protect them against you; when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice; you may know your society is doomed. Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 1957.

Stage 6 load-shedding has been forced on us by workers who are entitled, overpaid, underworked but have seen power abused everywhere else and have taken their monopoly position to extort an unaffordable increase. Never in the pre-1994 history of Eskom (formed in 1928, 60 years ago) did this happen. What changed? The only significant change was government policy cadre deployment, affirmative action and BEE.

Eskom has 10,000 too many employees; Transnet, the company that barely runs trains, employs 45,000 people. Most of these employees produce very little, a lot of them dont go to work, and when they do, they are disruptive and poorly managed by people who, like our president, cannot make a hard decision. They walk all over everything, and when things dont go their way, they throw their power around, because they can.

The leadership, institutional knowledge, work ethic and skills that carried these organisations has gone, retired or where made unwelcome just left. The ANC government has cut itself off from the skills that could help it implement its stupid policies, and now we all suffer.

I dont see private companies acting like this. Why? Because they have to compete and produce to survive.

Rob TiffinCape Town

JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Send us an email with your comments to letters@businesslive.co.za. Letters of more than 300 words will be edited for length. Anonymous correspondence will not be published. Writers should include a daytime telephone number.

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LETTER: Thank cadre deployment and BEE for the mess - BusinessLIVE

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is a person of grievance harboring resentment, [and] anger, reported no less an authority than Hillary Clinton during an appearance last week on CBS. In ignoring Thomass ideas to smear his temperament, Clinton pulled from the same playbook leftists have been using against Thomas since even before his 1991 confirmation hearings.

The New York Times once called Thomas the Supreme Courts youngest and angriest. Times columnist Frank Rich accused him of rage and unreconstructed racial bitterness. His colleague Maureen Dowd has over the years variously described the justice as barking mad, dishonest, and angry, bitter, self-pitying. In the article, Why Is Justice Thomas So Angry?, CNN legal correspondent Jeffrey Toobin concludes, His fulminations are hurtful to the courts mission and reputation.

Forming something of a bitter consensus, his critics exhibit behavior every bit as intriguing as that they claim to condemn.

The best place for insight into Thomass anger is with the man himself. In his autobiography, My Grandfathers Son, Thomas says his bouts with anger in early life were at their most intense when, during his college years, he grew drunk with revolutionary rhetoric.

Black-nationalist ideas didnt suit him long, however. As his life evolved, so did his thinking. The hostility he once directed at a racist American society for mistreating blacks found new targets.

His personal anger can be interpreted in the context of its inverse relationship with happiness. Alongside his brother, Thomas was raised by their grandfather, Myers Anderson, whom, taking after their mom, they called Daddy. A self-employed deliveryman and farmer with an inexhaustible work ethic, Thomas portrays Anderson as akin to a drill instructor.

As the price of their shelter, the two boys labored so intensively in maintaining the farm that Clarence once reminded his grandfather slavery had ended. Not in my house, Anderson answers. Without hard work, self-reliance was impossible, Anderson taught the boys, and only through self-reliance can men earn their freedom. That was to be his gift to them.

He knew that to be truly free and participate fully in American life, Thomas writes, poor blacks had to have the tools to do for themselves. Very few would argue that, absent this individual liberty, personal happiness is even possible.

Thomas credits self-reliance for his success as a student. Raised Roman Catholic, his elementary school years were spent at St. John Vianney Minor Seminary, where he excelled athletically and academically. With plans of becoming a priest, he left Georgia to attend high school at Immaculate Conception Seminary in Missouri.

After a change of heart, he returned to Georgia, where one of his grammar-school nuns persuaded him to apply to Holy Cross. Before heading back north to attend college, a friend introduced him to The Communist Manifesto. This introduction to Marx soon blossomed into something else.

As a child Thomas had been taught that a mans life is his own responsibility, but according to Marxist theories of racial oppression, progress comes through revolution. To black nationalist Marxists, white racism explained every problem, Thomas says. It was the trump card that won every argument. He co-founded the Black Student Union, a leftist group whose advocacy included anti-Vietnam protesting.

At one BSU rally, he says that after the crowd worked itself into a frenzy with leftist sloganeering, We drank our way to Harvard Square, where our disorderly parade deteriorated into a full-scale riot. It went on through the night. After returning to campus early the next morning, Thomas became horrified: I had let myself be swept up by an angry mob for no good reason other than that I, too, was angry.

In the whirlwind of irrational violence, the BSU students, he realized, had perpetuated an unwelcome stereotype, that of the angry black man. This anger was sanctioned. Thomas describes black students flagrantly violating the student code of conduct and making tall demands, only for the administration to cave every time.

Black students also bonded through black-nationalist politics. Mixing radical politics with the entitlement mentality the administration encouraged quickly proved toxic. Already unprepared for living among whites, Thomas says, many of these unprepared black students gave up class in favor of drugs and cultlike Eastern religions. Others dropped or failed out.

In his senior year, Thomas read the uber-individualist books of Ayn Rand and began questioning the groupthink of his black peers. But to embark on free thinking meant making enemies of the government, the racists, the activists, the students, even daddy.

Yet free thinking yielded an immediate payoff for his temperament, for he was also being liberated of ideologically imposed passions that universities countenanced: I already knew that the rage with which we lived made it hard for us to think straight. Now I understood for the first time that we were expected to be full of rage. It was our role but I didnt want to play it anymore.

Graduating cum laude in English, Thomas was accepted to Harvard Law, but opted instead for Yale, which he felt was less conservative. Yale was further down the racial-preference road than Holy Cross, which cast suspicion over the entire black student body, as author John Greenya quotes Thomas: You had to prove yourself every day because the presumption was that you were dumb and didnt deserve to be there on merit.

To put his abilities beyond doubt, Thomas eschewed classes on civil rights and constitutional law in favor of corporate, tax, and antitrust law, seeking out professors with a reputation for hostility to blacks, where he strived still. Aspiring a return to his Atlanta-area hometown where an elite law degree could be of service to needy blacks, his plans were frustrated after every application was rejected, and his anger was born anew.

Prospective employers dismissed our grades and diplomas assuming we got both primarily because of preferential treatment, Thomas told the Macon Telegraph. Believing his Ivy League education was overvalued, he affixed a $.15 stamp to his degree, the value of a Yale education when it bore the taint of racial preference.

In The New Yorker, Toobin wonders whether Thomas overplays this notion, asserting perhaps these rejections stemmed from simple racism, the very thing affirmative action was designed to combat. Perhaps. But would an already racist employer be any less skeptical of a black applicant owing to admissions racial preferences?

At Yale, Thomas had worked for the social-services group New Haven Legal Assistance, where he encountered the beneficiaries of government welfare programs. Many of those seeking eligibility feigned poverty and victimization and called for assistance.

Thomas nonetheless believed that as American society condemned blacks to an outlook of scant hope, redressing social imbalances was legitimate government work. Around this time he happened to befriend future U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, who introduced Thomas to a new set of ideas.

In a debate over whether mandating helmets for motorcyclists was meritorious policy Thomas felt accident-related health care costs demanded such a rule Bolton asked him: Clarence, as a member of a group that has been treated shabbily by the majority in this country, why would you want to give the government more power over your personal life?

That stopped me cold, Thomas writes:

I thought of what Daddy had said when I asked him why hed never gone on public assistance. Because it takes away your manhood, he said. You do that and they can ask you questions about your life that are none of their business. They can come into your house when they want to, and they can tell you who else can come and go in your house. Daddy and John, I saw, were making the same point: real freedom meant independence from government intrusion, which in turn meant that you had to take responsibility for your own decisions. When the government assumes that responsibility, it takes away your freedom and wasnt freedom the very thing for which blacks in America were fighting?

Thomass worldview made a prodigal return to the real world. In many eyes, though, this made him a traitor, for it positioned him as an opponent of programs advertised as pro-black.

Thomas was soon recruited by Missouris attorney general, John Danforth, a Yale alum. Danforths Republican affiliation posed a near-crisis of conscience for a man whod recently voted for George McGovern and felt there was no such thing as a self-respecting black Republican.

After being assured of the same treatment as every other staffer, Thomas accepted a job offer, to the derision of his Yale classmates. While the position was intellectually satisfying, its meager salary soon sent him into the private sector, where he encountered the opposite dilemma: satisfying pay but meager opportunities for intellectual challenge.

Thomas then stumbled upon a book review of Thomas Sowells book, Race and Economics, which ended with this passage:

Perhaps the greatest dilemma in the attempts to raise ethnic minority income is that those methods which have historically proved successful self-reliance, work skills, education, business experience are all slow developing, while those methods which are more direct and immediate job quotas, charity, subsidies, preferential treatment tend to undermine self-reliance and pride of achievement in the long run. If the history of American ethnic groups shows anything, it is how large a role has been played by attitudes and particularly attitudes of self-reliance.

Finally, Thomas knew he wasnt alone: I felt like a thirsty man gulping down a glass of cool water. But with newfound confidence came another challenge: Danforth had recently been elected Missouris junior senator and wanted Thomas to join his staff. A job that could be used to benefit other people was appealing, but Thomas knew his heretical thinking would make him a target in scandal-hungry D.C.

Not long into his tenure on the Hill, the Reagan administration asked if Thomas would serve as the assistant secretary for civil rights in the Department of Education. He almost didnt. Washington Post reporter Juan Williams had recently published an article quoting Thomas as asserting welfare ruins blacks, mentioning his sisters experience. The torrent of criticism that followed made him think twice about accepting a prominent executive branch position.

Having felt the lash of public criticism, I questioned whether I had the strength or the courage to stand in the eye of the howling storm that surrounded civil-rights policies, he writes.

He was likewise beset when later nominated to lead the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. As chairman, Thomas oversaw a massive increase in anti-discrimination litigation, and ideologically driven attacks against his character intensified. These began exacting a toll, especially as a longstanding fondness for alcohol turned into a form of escapism. He even nursed thoughts of suicide, Thomas writes:

I [asked] myself whether I might do better to back away from my political beliefs. Life, I knew, would be so much easier if I went along with whatever was popular. What were my principles really worth to me? As I gazed out my office window at the Potomac River, the answer came instinctively: Theyre worth my life. I spoke the words out loud, knowing at once that they were true.

When Thomas was later offered the nomination for Supreme Court justice, he knew it meant subjecting himself to abuse for not thinking as white senators thought black men should. He says he accepted only out of loyalty to then-President George H.W. Bush: By then Id shed the last of my illusions about white liberals: I knew that their broad-mindedness stopped well short of tolerating blacks who disagreed with them.

The campaign against him featured charges of tax fraud, Confederate sympathies, anti-Semitism, patronizing a cult-like church, and, of course, sexual harassment. These wild allegations obscured the motivation behind the campaign. According to Thomas: I refused to bow to the superior wisdom of the white liberals who thought they knew what was better for blacks. Since I didnt know my place, I had to be put down.

For noting the correlation between welfare services and an entitlement mentality, Thomas has endured beyond-the-pale personal attacks. After defending himself against a Playboy article (Reagan and the Revival of Racism) with a letter to the editor, the articles white author responded: As a Southerner, Mr. Thomas is surely familiar with those chicken-eating preachers who gladly parroted the segregationists line in exchange for a few crumbs from the white mans table. Hes one of the few left in captivity.

Not even civil-rights leaders criticized this racist broadside. What I found inexplicable, Thomas writes, was that so many of the people who went out of their way to tell me how strongly they disapproved of my views seemed to think that the mere act of pointing out the human damage caused by welfare policies was wrong in and of itself. Would they have felt the same way if Id said that I was opposed to drunk driving because my sister had been hit by a drunk driver?

In Grutter v. Bollinger, a 2003 Supreme Court case that upheld the constitutionality of the University of Michigan Law Schools admissions policies that favored some races over others, Thomas issued a dissent imbued with personal experience:

The majority of blacks are admitted to the Law School because of discrimination, and because of this policy all are tarred as undeserving. This problem of stigma does not depend on determinacy as to whether those stigmatized are actually the beneficiaries of racial discrimination. When blacks take positions in the highest places of government, industry, or academia, it is an open question today whether their skin color played a part in their advancement. The question itself is the stigma because either racial discrimination did play a role, in which case the person may be deemed otherwise unqualified, or it did not, in which case asking the question itself unfairly marks those blacks who would succeed without discrimination.

After this decision New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd said Thomass failure to appreciate racial preferences was hypocritical: Its impossible not to be disgusted at someone who could benefit so much from affirmative action and then pull up the ladder after himself. Toobin abused Thomas as a race traitor for his intense resentment of efforts to help African-Americans.

In 2002, five black law professors at the University of North Carolina boycotted a Thomas appearance, claiming: [A]s a justice, he not only engages in acts that harm other African Americans like himself, but also gives aid, comfort, and racial legitimacy to acts and doctrines of others that harm African Americans unlike himself that is, those who have not yet reaped the benefits of civil rights laws, including affirmative action, and who have not yet received the benefits of the white-conservative sponsorships that now empower him.

How could good-faith efforts at furthering blacks progress be met with such derision? Much of it stems from his critics perception of what motivates his opposition to their social-engineering experiments. Toobin, Dowd, and others ascribe this heterodoxy to a perceived servility to powerful conservative elites.

Dowd, imagining herself as Thomas, wrote of his opinion in Bush v. Gore: I used to have grave reservations about working at white institutions, subject to the whims of white superiors. But when Poppys whim was to crown his son one of those privileged Yale legacy types I always resented I had to repay The Man for putting me on the court even though I was neither qualified nor honest But having the power to carjack the presidency and control the fate of the country did give me that old X-rated tingle.

Others interpret Thomas as an ideological devotee to the take-it-as-it-comes judicial philosophy sometimes called originalism a notion hed reject.

A philosophy that is imposed from without instead of arising organically from day-to-day engagement with the law isnt worth having, he writes. Such a philosophy runs the risk of becoming an ideology, and Id spent much of my adult life shying away from abstract ideological theories that served only to obscure the reality of life as its lived.

Still, Thomass Supreme Court career is often blithely dismissed as the work of his ideological puppeteer, Scalia, supposedly because they often vote alike. In fact, according to ABC legal correspondent Jan Crawford Greenburgs book Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story for Control of the United States Supreme Court, it is Scalia who often changed his opinions to more closely reflect Thomass.

In 2005, University of Iowa Law Professor Angela Onwuachi-Willig reported the courts leftist justices were more likely to vote alike than Thomas and Scalia did, with Justice Ginsburg agreeing in full with Justice Souter 85% of the time, Justice Souter agreeing with Justice Stevens 77% of the time, and Justice OConnor agreeing with Chief Justice Rehnquist 79% of the time while Justice Thomas and Justice Scalia agreed in full only 73% of time.

This notion that blacks choose not to think for themselves is not entirely foreign to these critics; The Timess Dowd and Rich have joked that blacks who spoke at the Republican 2000 convention participated in a minstrel show.

Thomass own explanation for his ideas is less conspiratorial. He thinks too many of these policies are premised on the idea that blacks are an inferior race. In 1995, the Supreme Court heard Missouri v. Jenkins, where the Kansas City school district was attempting to, in part, correct racial imbalances by opening schools catering to whites in a neighborhood they had long ago abandoned. In a concurring opinion, Thomas writes:

It never ceases to amaze me that the courts are willing to assume that anything that is predominately black must be inferior. Instead of focusing on remedying the harm done to those black schoolchildren injured by segregation, the District Court here sought to convert the Kansas City, Missouri, School District (KCMSD) into a magnet district that would reverse the white flight caused by desegregation. Racial isolation itself not a harm; only state-enforced segregation is. After all, if separation is a harm, and if integration therefore is the only way that blacks can receive a proper education, then there must be something inferior about blacks. Under this theory, segregation injures blacks because blacks, when left on their own, cannot achieve.

Its unclear whether affirmative action supporters professed ideal of racial equality better representstheir actual thinking than preferences implications of black inferiority. President Biden certainly didnt help the former case when he speculated aloud to The Washington Post about why Iowas public schools outperform D.C.s: Theres less than 1 percent of the population of Iowa that is African American. There is probably less than 4 or 5 percent that are minorities. What is in Washington? So look, it goes back to what you start off with, what youre dealing with. More recently Biden said, Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids.

The preoccupation with means over ends exacts a toll on blacks, says Thomas. By pursuing busing programs meant to intermix students usually at the expense of quality education, blacks are essentially being used as guinea pigs in the experiments of white social scientists. This not only is demoralizing, but suggests that without whites, blacks are hopeless.

Once more, blacks become reliant on whites, and a theory that tacitly assumes black inferiority helps make it real. A 2019 Pew Research Center poll finds that, with the Great Society 57 years deep, black Americans are historically pessimistic, with more than 80 percent viewing their race as an impediment. Curiously, the more educated the respondent, the more likely he was to see his race as an obstacle, and half say America will never achieve racial equity.

Whites, too, see less progress, per Pew, but are twice as likely to be optimistic. This suggests efforts at racial redress atone for white guilt twice as well as they do boosting black progress. For this reason, Thomas sometimes says, racial preferences are intended more for their sponsors than their recipients.

Perhaps conventional repulsion for Republicans explains why more blacks havent had similar re-appraisals to the governments efforts to improve their lot. While skepticism of government social work may well be an aspect of conservative political philosophy, for Thomas, its merely an affirmation of his lifes experiences. He is conservative, in other words, because he is black.

And it no longer matters what anybody says, a declaration he made in a 1998 Memphis speech. Speaking before the National Bar Association, a black lawyers group, Thomas did not apologize for his heretical beliefs. Instead, he said this:

I have come here today, not in anger or to anger, though my mere presence has been sufficient, obviously, to anger some. Nor have I come to defend my views, but rather to assert my right to think for myself, to refuse to have my ideas assigned to me as though I was an intellectual slave because Im black. I come to state that I am a man, free to think for myself and do as I please. I have come to assert that I am a judge and I will not be consigned the unquestioned opinions of others.

This attitude is clearly unhelpful to those promoting preferences. Thomas, after all, is right: Racial preferences tar reputations. He has achieved the uttermost prominence, yet no matter what he achieves, it seems, his critics still argue he owes everything to preferences.

Dowd began an article, He knew he could not make a powerful legal argument against racial preferences, given the fact that he got into Yale Law School and got picked for the Supreme Court thanks to his race. Of Thomass nomination to the EEOC, Toobin says, Though Thomas doesnt say so directly, its clear he was given the job because he was black.

Stripping pride from a mans achievements is certainly an indecent thing. One wonders how Toobin would feel if it were constantly alleged that the only reason he got his job at CNN was because hes a dyed-blue-in-the-wool Democrat. And how would Dowd respond to accusations that the only reason she owns premier real estate on The New York Times editorial page is because shes a woman?

This claim effectively imparts ownership of racial-preference recipients achievements to those administering these programs. If thats the choice diminished personal sovereignty, or liberty Thomas would rather be free, even if it means he fails. This is why Thomas began his Grutter v. Michigan opinion with a quote from his hero, Frederick Douglass:

Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are worm-eaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! And if the negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! [Y]our interference is doing him positive injury.

Thomass life has been a struggle to stand alone, and he knows there are others. Hes long nursed an urge to return to Georgia and help his old neighborhood. At a book-signing party, he was asked whether hed prefer any job over his current assignment. He could think of only one: a small or medium-sized business somewhere in the South where he could be a part of my community.

Thomas has often passed up these opportunities on the belief that positions of greater prominence held greater capacity for reform. Yet each step has met ever greater condemnation sometimes infected with accusations of racial traitorship, always leading to the same regrettable conclusion: Black minds arent ready to be free.

But having untangled himself from the pull-strings of racial groupthink, leftist social dogma, political ideology, and popular opinion, Thomas was recently able to proclaim himself the freest man on the court. Its this, his intellectual emancipation, that most infuriates his leftist critics. In proving their entire worldview fraudulent, Thomas continues to attract racist abuse because thats all they have left to hurl.

Witnessing the way white progressives resort to racism the moment a black man breaks free from his intellectual shackles, surely younger black thinkers will realize theres no value in accepting a set of beliefs simply because they were born a certain race. That would surely make Justice Thomas happy.

Tom Elliott is the founder and editor of Grabien. Follow him on Twitter @tomselliott.

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Why The Racist Left Smears Clarence Thomas As An 'Angry Black Man' - The Federalist

The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism, by Matthew Continetti, Basic Books, 480 pages, $32

Unlike most accounts of the American conservative movement, Matthew Continetti's The Right begins in the 1920s, when two Republican presidents returned the country to normalcy after World War I. The ideals of that era's Republicans were not so different from those espoused by former President Donald Trump today: They believed in cutting taxes, restricting immigration, and protecting American industry through tariffs. But there was one fundamental difference: Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge rejected the populism of their age. They aimed to preserve American institutions. Trump is more like William Jennings Bryan, riding the coattails of discontent. He represents a time, Continetti argues, when an increasingly apocalyptic conservative movement "no longer viewed core American institutions as worth defending."

Continetti has worked in many of the most important conservative institutions. As such, he should be praised for addressing the darker side of his movement, a side that many other conservatives have been hesitant to confront. Continetti puts the tension between populism and elitism at the heart of the conflict over conservatism. The result is a much more nuanced and satisfying portrait of the American right than is offered by most other journalists and historians.

The discontent Trump used to propel himself to the White House has always been present on the American right. When Sen. Joseph McCarthy (RWis.) began his crusade against "the hidden Communists in America and their liberal Democratic protectors," for example, he found support in the Republican Party and in the few conservative publications that existed at the timeThe American Mercury, Human Events, even the libertarian-leaning Freeman. As McCarthy's accusations multiplied and "became more outrageous, more galling, and more disconnected from reality," Continetti writes, conservatives such as William F. Buckley Jr. still backed his crusade. There are similarities in the way Sen. Robert Taft (ROhio) responded to McCarthy's conspiracy theories and the way Sen. Mitch McConnell (RKy.) has responded to Trump's. While McCarthy ultimately undermined himself by launching outrageous accusations against President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Continetti demonstrates just how long conservatives have been tempted to follow aggressive demagogues while they lambaste liberals.

Traditionally, conservative elites have tried to channel populist sentiments into a respectable and successful movement. No one had to grapple with this question more than Buckley, the founder of National Review. The usual conservative narrative says that Buckley legitimized conservatism by being a gatekeeper: In keeping the conspiracism of the John Birch Society and the radical individualism of Ayn Rand at arm's length, he made it less likely that conservatives would be labeled extremists. In the case of the John Birch Society, Buckley wrote a 5,000-word essay, "The Question of Robert Welch," that condemned the group's founder, arguing that "the best thing Mr. Welch could do to serve the cause of anticommunism in the United States would be to resign." Buckley's purges are often held up as a great success, but the reality is that Welch did not resign and the John Birch Society continued to have influence.

While Buckley initially aligned his magazine with segregationists in the South, a choice that has marred the movement's reputation ever since, he was resolute in opposing Alabama Gov. George Wallace's particular brand of populism. Wallace, of course, was a strident proponent of segregation in the 1960s. During his second run for president, on a third-party ticket in 1968, the candidate turned heavily to anti-elitist rhetoric. "As he began to attack the federal government and its know-it-all politicians and bureaucrats," Continetti writes, "his support among conservatives grew." Buckley called Wallace "Mr. Evil," "a dangerous man," and a "great phony." He was also taken aback by the "uncouthness that seems to account for his general popularity."

Other conservatives joined the denunciations. Wallace's conservative fans, Frank Meyer wrote, need to recognize that "there are other dangers to conservatism and to the civilization conservatives are defending than the liberal Establishment, and that to fight liberalism without guarding against these dangers runs the risk of ending in a situation as bad as or worse as our present one." In modern parlance: Don't back a man like Wallace to own the libs.

Ultimately, movement conservatives did not embrace Wallace. Ronald Reagan refused to run on his ticket with him (the idea had been floated by some conservative activists), and Wallace ultimately gave way to another Southern Democrat, Jimmy Carter (who Wallace endorsed and campaigned for in both 1976 and 1980). But the fact that he made so many inroads is revealing.

Continetti does not spend much time discussing Reagan. This was deliberate: Reagan often dominates histories of the conservative movement, even though he was just one of many important historical actors. But he remains essential to understanding the American right. His presidential campaigns appealed to the populist impulses of the late 1970s, but they did so in an optimistic way, channeling voters' discontent into a constructive legislative agenda. This made him both the exemplar and the exception.

Continetti's major contribution comes in explaining how conservatism has changed since the end of the Cold War. Here he details the conflict between neoconservatives, such as Bill Kristol, and paleoconservatives, such as Pat Buchanan. With their dedication to the culture war and their opposition to foreign intervention and immigration, the paleoconservatives presaged Trump's electoral success in 2016.

The paleocons lost the political battles of the 1990s and 2000s. But the War on Terror ultimately discredited the neoconservatives, opening the door for populist discontent to capture the Republican Party. The first manifestation of this was the Tea Party movement. While Continetti draws a straight line from this to Trump's election, in reality the Tea Party encompassed several strands of conservatism (all populist in nature) with conflicting conceptions of what 21st century conservatism should entail. Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Marco Rubio of Florida, and Ted Cruz of Texas all rode the Tea Party wave to victory in 201012, and all had very different visions for the future of the nationand very different visions from Trump's. Nonetheless, the anti-establishment politics that emerged in the wake of the Iraq War and the 2008 financial crisis ultimately brought Trump to power.

It was during this time, from 2010 to 2016, that Continetti believes "the populist American Right [became] less interested in preserving institutions than in tearing them down." One could hardly think of a better instrument for that purpose than Trump. Trump condemned illegal immigration and trade with China, announced "support for a ban on Muslim entry into the United States," and recalibrated "American politics along the axis of national identity." Many conservatives initially condemned him, and National Review even released a special issue titled "Against Trump." One of its contributors called the candidate "a philosophically unmoored political opportunist who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP in favor of a free-floating populism with strong-man overtones." Nonetheless, Trump won.

Now a new generation of right-wing writers is denouncing the American founding and trying to redefine American conservatism. Continetti rejects their project, insisting that "one cannot be an American patriot without reverence for the nation's enabling documents" and "one cannot be an American conservative without regard for the American tradition of liberty those charters inaugurated." The task for conservatives, he writes, is to preserve "the American idea of liberty and the familial, communal, religious, and political institutions that incarnate and sustain itthat is what makes American conservatism distinctly American."

Many Americans, including a lot of conservatives, were shocked when Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016. If Continetti's book had been available before the 2016 election, perhaps we would not have been so surprised. The Right demonstrates that the populism we have seen from the American right over the last five years is not an aberration. It has always been present, lurking in the shadows and sometimes in plain sight, waiting for its moment. Some statesmen, such as Reagan, were able to tame it and channel it into something productive, but for the most part, it was just pushed to the movement's fringes. It is not likely to return to the margins anytime soon.

More:

A New History of the Old Right - Reason

Republicans, led by Florida's Gov. Ron DeSantis, aren't slowing down their war on public education. They really do seem to think they've got a winner with this strategy of misappropriating educator jargon, lying about what it means, and using that to scare gullible parents and (mostly) bigoted old people into joining the fight to gut a child's right to an education. This is how the state of Florida has reached beyond the scare tactics of lying about critical race theory and the "don't say gay" bill tobanning a whole slew of math textbooks, claiming that the textbooks had, uh, "Woke Math" in them.

A better picture of what the hell Republicans consider "Woke Math" finally started to emerge and, unsurprisingly, was largely centered on the latest right-wing hysteria.

RELATED:What is "social emotional learning" and how did it become the right's new CRT panic?

Republicans are suddenly furious now about another educational bit of jargon: "Social-emotional learning," typically shortened to "SEL." Conservatives are complaining that kids are learning social and emotional skills like learning to say "please" and "thank you." Yes, you read that right. Being reminded to share and to clean up after yourself is being equated with communism. Telling little kids to play nicely together is the end of civilization itself.

Successful, well-adjusted adults are the GOP's kryptonite

It would be hard to believe, until you remember that these are the same people who practically worship Donald Trump, an illiterate bully with absolutely no redeeming qualities.

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If they consider Trump a role model, of course, Republicans don't want kids learning either math or basic social skills in the classroom. Generating new Republican voters means cultivating a generation of mean-spirited dullards. By god, DeSantis isn't going to let some soft-hearted schoolteachers get in his way.

This is truly no exaggeration. As Kathryn Joyce reported for Salon, SEL is just a systemized way for educators to incorporate life skills into lesson planning, with an eye towards "helping students understand and regulate their emotions, cooperate with classmates and be more empathetic." It's also about presenting subjects, like math, in ways that encourage kids to get better at problem-solving and critical thinking, rather than rote memorization.

The debate is about the journey to the right answer. Are they simply told the answer and expected to parrot it back? Or are they being taught how to think through problems?

Judd Legum, Tesnim Zekeria, and Rebecca Crosby at Popular Info examined the banned math textbooks and found that the supposedly offending sections were mostly focused on teaching young kids to be patient with themselves and others while dealing with difficult math problems."How can you show you value the ideas of others?" a level 1 textbook asks. Other supposedly offensive book suggested kids work together on problems, and ask, "What can I learn from others' thinking about the problem?" And as the New York Times examination of the books found, some of what angers Republicans is centered around the "growth mindest" approach to education, where kids are taught to puzzle out ways to solve math problems creatively, instead of simply being told to memorize multiplication tables.

DeSantis doesn't hide that all this creativity and empathy is what is teeing him off.

RELATED:Banning math books and attacking libraries: Republicans ramp up their mission to spread ignorance

"Math is about getting the right answer, not about feelings or ideologies," he tweeted in a video where he demagogued about how there's "a right answer and a wrong answer and we want all our students getting the right answers."

His framing is meant to imply, falsely, that kids are somehow writing "2+2=5" and getting As anyway. Couple that with his press secretary claiming, falsely, that teachers were saying the right answers are "white supremacy" and the conspiracy theory they're peddling comes into view. This is classic "Bell Curve" white paranoia, a racist belief that the "liberal elite" is promoting supposedly less intelligent people of color over supposedly more qualified white people.

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In reality, of course, the kids are still expected to get the right answers. The debate is about the journey to the right answer. Are they simply told the answer and expected to parrot it back? Or are they being taught how to think through problems? The latter is a far more valuable skill, of course. But it's also threatening to authoritarians, who prefer an unthinking citizenry that simply follows the commands of their right-wing leaders. The battle is not over whether two plus two equals four. It's over whether students know why that equation works. If they do, then they are less likely to believe Trump or DeSantis when they push alternative facts.

The Republican loathing of the larger social and emotional parts of SEL isn't exactly mysterious, either. For the kids themselves, of course, lessons in working well with others, active listening, and exhibiting empathy all cultivate invaluable skills. Kids who learn those skills are far likelier to grow into successful, well-adjusted adults. But successful, well-adjusted adults are the GOP's kryptonite. They need voters to be maladjusted miscreants, the kind of people who think that someone like Trump or Tucker Carlson is worth following. So of course they object to any school lessons that put kids on the pathway to being decent adults. They need a voting population of assholes to keep holding power.

RELATED:The secret plan behind Florida's "don't say gay" bill: Bankrupting public education

These fights are nothing new, to be clear. Conservatives have long championed writers like Ayn Rand, whose entire life philosophy was a belief that kindness and empathy are weaknesses. Being a bully has always been aspirational on the right, which is why there seems to be no end of loudmouthed talk radio jackasses in the mold of Rush Limbaugh. It's why there was a massive meltdown in the '90s over Hillary Clinton's book "It Takes A Village," and it still causes red hot right-wing anger today. They really hate Clinton's notion that children should be raised to be empathetic members of society. The ideal child-rearing on the right is about an authoritarian father dictating his child's life, which produces incurious and small-minded bullies. In other words, people like Trump.

As Joyce reported, a big talking point on the right now is that SEL is a covert form of "critical race theory." This is dumb on its surface, but actually makes more sense if you view it from this Ayn Randian point of view. After all, kids who are raised to be good listeners, critical thinkers, and empathetic human beings are, in fact, more likely to be skeptical of bigoted beliefs like racism, homophobia, and sexism. To liberals, this sounds great, and certainly better than raising the next generation to be a bunch of ignorant buffoons like Trump. To conservatives, however, it opens the door to kids who move to the big city, have friends who are different races, and who may even, heaven forbid, start pushing back when their own parents say prejudiced things. Given a choice between raising kids to be well-functioning members of society, or raising them to be dim-witted bullies, Republicans clearly choose the latter.

See more here:

Republicans want kids to be bullies like Trump: The hidden agenda of the right's attack on SEL - Salon

Citation From the April 25, 2022, edition of SiriusXM's Tell Me Everything with John Fugelsang

JOHN FUGELSANG (HOST): For all the coverage that CNN+ tanking got, this is the really the media story of the year so far.

ANGELO CARUSONE (PRESIDENT, MEDIA MATTERS FOR AMERICA): Oh yeah, no. This is a huge story. And it's a huge story, I think that it's a huge story in ways that I don't think that the current reactions actually reflect.

...

There are really, really bad people, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, strangely enough, amongst this group of people that are celebrating isn't even the worst.

Like, there are actual Nazis and white supremacists and like really horrible, violent people that are very very excited about this, about [Elon] Musk acquiring Twitter because they all think they're going to get their accounts back which is going to allow them to like, you know, do a whole bunch of stuff that got them banned in the first place, which was abusing people.

But I actually think to me, the big thing here is that it's a pivot point. This is actually and I see this in many ways as similar to what happened and it's because, partly because of Musk, partly because the way that Twitter plays out. You know, it's when Fox, sort of, was born, the idea behind it was that it was a counterbalance to the rest of the news media.

FUGELSANG: That's right.

CARUSONE: And in a lot of ways, Musk sees this as a counterbalance to a whole range of policies that were put in place on social media. And he's been talking about this for like two to three years, where he's teased the idea, you know, in conversations and on Twitter that he wants to buy a network or some kind of social media outlet because it's time to push back against this sort of woke culture.

And I think that he sees this as an opportunity to do you know it's not as ideologically pure as say what Ailes and Murdoch tried to do in the nineties, but he sees this through ideological terms, which is that this is an opportunity to demonstrate, in his mind, a sort of open environment very much the way that, like, a sophomore in high school that just read Ayn Rand for the first time would, like, regurgitate that stuff back to you and think they have some really profound thoughts.

The rest is here:

Angelo Carusone: Elon Musk's vision for Twitter sounds like a sophomore in high school that just read Ayn Rand for the first time - Media Matters for...

The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set newsroom policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or onbangordailynews.com.

Bart Ehrman is currently the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the author of several best-selling books on religious topics. His writings range from the historical Jesus, to the development of Christianity from humble beginnings to the worldwide religion we know today.

He is also a self-described agnostic atheist, and a textual critic.

Ehrmanis not the kind of writer one usually finds on the nightstands of devoted Christians. As Anglican priest Michael Birdonce put it, for conservative Christians, Ehrman is a bit of a bogeyman, the Professor Moriarty of biblical studies, constantly pressing an attack on their long-held beliefs about God, Jesus, and the Bible.

And yet I, a lifelong Catholic, just finished his book Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife.

In it, Ehrman attempts to trace the origins of the concept of heaven and hell as we currently conceive of them, and historically explain how those notions were developed within Christianity. He does not himself believe in an afterlife, and declares outright that the ideas of the afterlife that we have today are at odds with what Jesus taught, and what the first Christians believed.

To explain my counterintuitive reading choice, I read Ehrmans book because of my longstanding one after two rule.

Here is the basic rationale: it is impossible to seek truth, insight, wisdom or knowledge without directly challenging your beliefs. For every two books I read that align with my worldview in some way, I will read one book that opposes those views.

As a self-described classical liberaland fusionist, I enjoy reading books that more fully develop my ideological worldview. Thus late last year I read through Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek and The Virtue of Selfishnessby Ayn Rand,two important texts of the libertarian right.

After I read those two books, I picked up Das Kapital by Karl Marx.

Doing so was incredibly important for me, not only because it exposed me to the actual arguments, rather than the cartoonish characterizations of the communist icon contained in most mainstream discourse, but also because it forced me to consider his logic and arguments directly and sincerely.

It is important to keep the subject-matter of the one in line with that of the two. For instance, after reading memoirs from right-wing politicians, such as Decision Pointsby former President George W. Bush and For the Record by former conservative British Prime Minister David Cameron, I picked up A Journey by Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The Dictatorship of Woke Capitalby Stephen Soukup and The Coddling of the American Mind by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff were followed up by How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X Kendi. Yes, I really read it.

Sometimes I will even double up the one after the two. This happened after reading The Power of Silenceby Catholic Cardinal Robert Sarah and When the Church Was Young by Marcellino DAmbrosio. Afterward I read both A Universe from Nothing by Lawrence Krauss and Zealot by Reza Aslan.

The point of doing all this is pretty simple. My beliefs are worthless to me if they are unable to withstand criticism or scrutiny. My ideas arent really ideas if I havent thought through the possible ways they could be wrong.

Human beings have a tendency to want to be right, and resist any confrontation of ideas that may prove them wrong. Avoiding the discomfort inherent in self-examination doesnt actually make any of us right, however. It simply avoids any need for us to consider the possibility that we may be wrong, thus making us feel secure in ourselves. Yet that comfort is a rather cowardly form of avoidance.

We should instead be constantly fostering skepticism. When we read things that we agree with, it is usually best to read them critically and identify logical inconsistencies throughout. When we read things we disagree with, it is best to read them sympathetically, and sincerely consider the perspective.

Doing so doesnt mean we have to necessarily change our mind, or abandon our beliefs. Ive found that doing this actually makes the opinions you are left with all the stronger, because you now can see the opposing point of view, and have thought much deeper about the issue.

This wont make us all agree with each other, but it will make us smarter, and much more reasonable. Consider creating your own one after two rule, and see how it goes. It might surprise you how much you enjoy disagreeing with yourself.

More articles from the BDN

More here:

Broaden your perspective with the '1 after 2' reading rule - Bangor Daily News

SELLING IS A vital part of what we do. Patients dont get to experience amazing vision without eyewear. To improve our sales, weve been told to change the way we think about sales.

But what we actually need is more foundational, more deeply rooted. We need to change our philosophy on sales. Youve likely heard stories of people transforming their lives with a change in philosophy. Could a new sales philosophy transform your business? Absolutely.

Writer Ayn Rand, a brilliant thinker and philosopher, said, philosophy is needed in order to live life. The importance of having a foundational philosophy underpinning everything you do, especially business, cant be overstated. Thus, the two most important questions are:

Think of this philosophy as a filter for all your decisions and actions, guiding you and your team. Only do those things that support it. This one act is simple, powerful, and it will transform your business.

To help you create a foundational philosophy, consider this: Whats best for the patient, is best for the practice.

Let it settle in. Its profound, not to be glossed over. If what is best for the patient makes the practice money, even better. Many feel guilty when recommending something if its more expensive; the real guilt should come if you are not recommending what you truly know is best for your patients vision.A heart surgeon never asks a patient if they want the best procedure or one thats just okay; neither do neurologists or orthopedic surgeons.

For you to serve, you must sell. Selling is serving. Better products are easier to work with, more functional, have better craftsmanship and style. It best serves the practice through dramatically decreasing remakes and warranty work, while increasing patient satisfaction and referrals. All things that increase your reputation and sales but will go unnoticed if you choose not to sell or only aim to sell the least expensive option to the patient.

Money demands that you sellyour talent to their reason. Ayn Rand

A critical initial sales step is recommending or prescribing. When its done with authentic belief its powerful, and skilled opticians can more easily guide a patient through the optical, ensuring the patient experiences the best vision while delivering the talent of your team. This is the perfect example of a customer-first philosophy implemented in a real sale.

Your patient will have confidence in that amazing progressive and that great AR treatment that will keep those lenses pristine. Definitely best for the patient and best for the practice.

A few other examples:

Its best for your patient to have an annual supply of contacts. Studies prove these patients are less likely to overwear lenses.Its best for your patient to have photo documentation of their retina to flag early changes. One early catch can make all the difference.

First, implement your version of a customer-first philosophy. Second, and just as critical, is getting buy-in from your team. Assure them when you all implement this philosophy decisions will come faster and easier, be less stressful, more accurate and increase accountability.

As co-founder and visionary leader of Spexy, this is the type of philosophy-based thinking I implement and impart to my team and our clients.

Decide, right now, to implement a clear customer-first philosophy to guide your business. Your team will start selling and serving like never before.

See original here:

This Is the Most Important Decision You Can Make To Increase Sales Right Now! - InvisionMag

Many articles have been written about whats wrong with Ayn Rands philosophy. But, to my knowledge, none of them presents her ideas accurately. So I thought it would be helpful to write one that does.

Heres whats wrong with Rands ideas:

Rand held that existence exists, that reality is real, that there is a world out there, and that we are conscious of it. She held that everything in existence is something specific; everything has a nature; a thing is what it is. (A snake is a snake. A woman is a woman. A pillar of salt is a pillar of salt.) She held that a thing can act only in accordance with its nature. (A snake can slither; it cannot speak. A woman can speak; she cant become a pillar of salt.) And Rand held that there is only one reality: the one we perceive, the one we experience, the one in which we live.1

Where to start with all of the problems in just that one paragraph?

To begin with, the idea that existence exists excludes the idea that existence doesnt exist. It denies the subjectivist, pragmatist, postmodernist view that reality is an illusion, a mental construct, a social convention. Obviously, people who insist that reality is not real are not going to buy in to a philosophy that says it is real.

So thats one huge problem with Rands philosophy.

Now consider her view that only one reality exists. This excludes the notion that a second reality exists; it excludes the idea of a supernatural realm, the realm of God. Likewise, her view that everything has a specific nature, that a thing is what it is, excludes the possibility that some things are not what they are. For instance, it excludes the possibility that a dead person can be alive (life after death), the possibility that wine can be blood or that bread can be flesh (transubstantiation), and the possibility that the Earth came into existence hundreds of thousands of years after the first Homo sapiens roamed it. Similarly, the idea that things can act only in accordance with their nature excludes the possibility of miraclesso: no Immaculate Conception, no virgin birth (of Jesus), no living inside a whale for three days, no walking on water, no faith healing, and so on.

Needless to say, people who insist on the existence of God, life after death, creationism, and miracles will not buy in to a philosophy that leaves no room for such things.

The problems with Rands philosophy are mounting rapidlyand weve just begun.

Another major problem is Rands view that man acquires knowledge by means of reason, the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by his senses. According to Rand, insofar as a person observes reality via his senses; integrates his observations into concepts, generalizations, and principles; checks his thinking for contradictions; and checks his conclusions for consistency with his ever-expanding network of observation-based integrationshe can acquire knowledge. Indeed, according to Rand human beings have acquired massive amounts of knowledge, which is why science has advanced so far and man has accomplished so much.2

Well, that view will not go over well with skeptics, pragmatists, and postmodernists who argue that man cannot acquire knowledgeat least not knowledge of reality. Because mans sensory apparatuses process all incoming data before it reaches consciousness, these skeptics argue, man is conscious not of an external reality or a world out there, but rather of internal modifications or distortions.

No human being has ever experienced an objective world, or even a world at all, writes Sam Harris. The sights and sounds and pulsings that you experience are consequences of processed datadata that has been structured, edited, or amplified by the nervous system. Thus, The world that you see and hear is nothing more than a modification of your consciousness.3

This fashionable view is rooted in the ideas of Immanuel Kant, who wrote: What objects may be in themselves, and apart from all this receptivity of our sensibility [i.e., perception], remains completely unknown to us. Once we understand this, Kant says, we realise that not only are the drops of rain mere appearances, but that even their round shape, nay even the space in which they fall, are nothing in themselves, but merely modifications within consciousness. In principle, Kant says, the actual objectthe object as it really isremains unknown to us.4

Indeed, says Kant, it is an error even to regard external objects as things-in-themselves, which exist independently of us and of our sensibility, and which are therefore outside us. The truth, he says, is that external objects are mere appearances or species of [internal] representations, and the things we perceive are something only through these representations. Apart from them they are nothing.5

When philosophers or intellectuals claim that we cannot know reality because our sensory apparatuses distort the data before it reaches consciousness, they may sound profound or impressive (at least to each other). But, then, along comes Ayn Rand, who points out that such claims amount to the view that man is blind, because he has eyesdeaf, because he has earsdeluded, because he has a mindand the things he perceives do not exist, because he perceives them.6

As you might imagine, such straightforward clarifications, which abound in Rands works, can make skeptics feel as ignorant as they claim to be. So thats another problem with Rands philosophy.

Further, Rand holds that reason is mans only means of gaining knowledge.7 This excludes the possibility that revelation, faith, feelings, or extrasensory perception (ESP) is a means of knowledge. On her view, to embrace ideas not supported by evidence is to err. Thus Rand sees all forms of mysticismall claims to a non-sensory, non-rational means of knowledgeas baseless, arbitrary, illegitimate.

That, of course, will not fly with religionists, subjectivists, psychics, or others who claim to acquire knowledge through non-sensory, non-rational means.

And then there are the myriad problems posed by Rands conception of free will.

Rand holds that people do indeed possess free willand that it resides in a fundamental choice: to think or not to think, to focus ones mind or not to do so, to go by facts or to go by feelings.8 The problems with this idea manifest on several levels.

For starters, if people have free will, then not only are their choices their responsibility, so too are the consequences of their choices. If a person characteristically chooses to think, and if his thinking guides him to build a business and make a lot of money, then the business and the money are his achievements. Likewise, if a person characteristically chooses not to think, and if his non-thinking renders him poor and miserable, then his poverty and misery are his fault.

Well, egalitarians, socialists, communists, and the like are not going to accept that for a minute. People who want to organize society in a way that ignores or denies personal responsibility will not accept a philosophy that upholds the very principle that gives rise to and necessitates personal responsibility.

Nor will Rands conception of free will jibe with Jews, Christians, or Muslims who take their religion seriously. If people truly choose to think or not to think, then the notion of an omnipotent, omniscient God goes out the window. Think about it: If people are free to think or not to think, then whatever powers an alleged God is said to possess, he cant know in advance which alternative people are going to choose. If God existed and knew in advance how people were going to choose, then their choices would be preordainedthus they wouldnt be genuine choices. Likewise, if people are free to think or not to think, then God cant make them choose to think. Nor can he make them choose not to think. You see the problem.

In short, Rands view of free will leaves no room for the existence of an all-knowing, all-powerful God. This will not sit well with anyone who insists that such a God exists.

And thats still just the tip of Rands free-will iceberg. Her view of volition leads to a whole host of additional problems. Consider a few more.

If people choose to think or not to think, then they choose all of their actions that are governed by that fundamental choice as well. For instance, on Rands view, a person can choose to be honest or dishonest. He can refuse to pretend that facts are other than they areor he can choose to engage in such pretense.9 Importantly, Rands views on honesty and dishonesty are not merely about telling the truth versus lying. Rand holds that if a person knows something to be true but pretends that he doesnt know it, then even if he doesnt lie about iteven if he maintains the pretense only in his own mindhe is being dishonest. For instance, on Rands view, if a person knows that a friend has acted unjustly but pretends that he doesnt know it, hes being dishonest. And if a person knows that he owes someone an apology but doesnt extend it, hes being dishonest. In such cases, although the person has not lied, he nevertheless is pretending that facts are other than they are.

Well, people who choose occasionally to pretend that they dont know what they do knowand who want to continue in this fashionwill not embrace a philosophy that says they are able to stop deluding themselves and morally corrupt if they dont. (Of course, they might pretend to embrace it, but thats another matter.)

Likewise, on Rands view, a person can choose to think for himself, or he can turn to others and expect them to think for him. In other words, he can engage in independent thinking or in what Rand termed second-handedness.10 (An example of independent thinking would be someone reading a philosophers works and deciding for himself whether they make sense. An example of second-handedness would be someone turning to others to see what they say he should think about the philosophers ideas.) Rands insistence that people should face reality and think for themselves as a matter of unwavering principle is a problembecause many people are afraid to think for themselves. Many people prefer to avoid that effort, to shirk that responsibility, and to passively accept the ideas of their group, their leader, their tribe. Such people will not embrace a philosophy that upholds independent thinking as a fundamental virtue.

This brings us to the mother lode of problems with Ayn Rands philosophyand to the point of the whole thing.

Rands aforementioned principles calling for people to uphold reason, to be honest, and to think for themselves are part and parcel of the moral code she called rational egoism or rational self-interest. This moral code holds that the objective standard of moral value is mans lifeby which Rand means the requirements of human life given the kind of being that humans are. On her view, because humans are rational beingsbeings whose basic means of survival is the use of reasonthat which sustains and furthers the life of a rational being is good (or moral), and that which harms or destroys the life of a rational being is bad (or evil).11

Further, because Rand sees human beings as individualseach with his own body, his own mind, his own lifeshe holds that each individuals own life is properly his own ultimate value. She holds that each individual should choose and pursue his own life-serving values, and that he should never surrender a greater value for the sake of a lesser valuehe should never commit a sacrifice. As she puts it:

Manevery manis an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.12

Well, such a moral code clearly will not fly with people who want to maintain the traditional notion that people have a moral duty to sacrifice themselves or their values for the sake of others (i.e., altruism). Nor will it fly with people who feel that they have a moral right to sacrifice other people as they see fit (predation).

Not only does Rand regard both self-sacrifice and the sacrifice of others as immoral; she also regards the use of any form or degree of initiatory physical force against human beings as properly illegal. In her words, the essential characteristics of a civilized society are that men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit; and that no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force against others.13

Needless to say, Rands staunch advocacy of voluntary exchange to mutual benefit and her moral opposition to the use of force as a means of obtaining values from people will not fly with people or governments that want to use force to obtain values from people. Criminals who want to steal peoples belongings, commit fraud, rape people, or violate rights in other ways will not embrace a moral code that forbids them to do so. Likewise, governments that want to force people to serve the common good or the community or the master race or some other master will not recognize or uphold a morality that forbids them to initiate physical force against people. And pull-peddling businessmen who want government to forcibly control, regulate, or cripple their competitors will not recognize or uphold a moral code that forbids such coercion either.

This problemRands moral opposition to the use of physical force against human beingslies at the very base of her political theory, where it serves as a bridge between her moral code and her political views. This is where Rands theory of rights comes into the picture. As she put it:

Rights are a moral conceptthe concept that provides a logical transition from the principles guiding an individuals actions to the principles guiding his relationship with othersthe concept that preserves and protects individual morality in a social contextthe link between the moral code of a man and the legal code of a society, between ethics and politics. Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.14

Rand sees individual rights as the governing principle of a civilized society because she sees rights as deriving from mans nature and as requirements of his life in a social context. She elaborates:

A right is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a mans freedom of action in a social context. There is only one fundamental right (all the others are its consequences or corollaries): a mans right to his own life. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action; the right to life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated actionwhich means: the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life. (Such is the meaning of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.)15

According to Rand, the only proper purpose of government is to protect individual rights by banning physical force from social relationshipsand by using force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use.16

Clearly, no one who wants government to do more than that will embrace Rands philosophy. No one who wants government to forcibly redistribute wealth, or to forbid certain kinds of speech, or to forbid certain kinds of consensual adult sex, or to restrict freedom in any other way will embrace a philosophy that demands principled recognition and absolute protection of individual rights.

A final problem worth mentioning about Rand and her philosophy is that she wrote in plain, intelligible English and defined her terms clearly as a matter of course, so that anyone who wants to understand her ideas can do so with relative ease. Toward this end, in addition to presenting her ideas in various nonfiction works, she dramatized them in spellbinding fictionsuch as her novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shruggedthus enabling people to see her ideas in practice. Well, this will not go over well with modern philosophers or academics who insist that philosophy must be written in academese, technical jargon, or impenetrable fog. Nor will it pass muster with anyone who feels that dramatizing or concretizing ideas in fiction somehow disqualifies them.

We could go on. Rands philosophy involves many additional problems. But the foregoing is a concise indication of the trouble it causes.

So, next time the subject of whats wrong with Ayn Rands ideas comes up, be sure to share this brief sketch of the kinds of problems involved. Its better for people to learn whats wrong with Rands actual ideas than to waste time contemplating takedowns of straw men.

Craig is cofounder and editor in chief of The Objective Standard, cofounder and director of education at Objective Standard Institute, and executive director of Prometheus Foundation. He is the author of Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It; Rational Egoism: The Morality for Human Flourishing; and the forthcoming Moral Truths Your Parents, Preachers, and Teachers Dont Want You to Know. He is currently working on his fourth book, Thinking in Principles. For updates on his work, join his mailing list atCraigBiddle.com.

1 See Ayn Rand, This is John Galt Speaking, in Ayn Rand, For the New Intellectual (New York: Signet, 1961), esp. 12452.

2 See For the New Intellectual; Ayn Rand, This is John Galt Speaking, in For the New Intellectual; and Rand, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, 2nd ed., edited by Harry Binswanger and Leonard Peikoff (New York: Penguin, 1990).

3 Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004), 41.

4 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, translated by Norman Kemp Smith (New York: St. Martins, 1965), 8285.

5 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 346.

6 Rand, For the New Intellectual, 32.

7 Ayn Rand, What Is Capitalism? in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (New York: Signet, 1967), 16.

8 See Rand, This is John Galt Speaking, 12027.

9 See Rand, This is John Galt Speaking, 129; Leonard Peikoff, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (New York: Meridian, 1993), 267.

10 See Rand, The Nature of the Second-Hander, in For the New Intellectual, 6871; see also Ayn Rand, Journals of Ayn Rand, edited by David Harriman (New York: Dutton, 1997), esp. 9091, 293294, 416.

11 See Ayn Rand, The Objectivist Ethics, in The Virtue of Selfishness (New York: Signet, 1964), esp. 2128.

12 Ayn Rand, Introducing Objectivism, in The Voice of Reason (New York: Meridian, 1989), 4.

13 Rand, Introducing Objectivism, 4.

14 Ayn Rand, Mans Rights, in Virtue of Selfishness, 10810.

15 Rand, Mans Rights, 110.

16 Ayn Rand, What Is Capitalism?, in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (New York: Signet, 1967), 19.

See original here:

Here's What's Wrong With Ayn Rand's Philosophy - The Objective Standard

What motivates a creative thinker?

Is it a selfless desire to benefit mankind? A hunger for fame, fortune, and accolades? The need to prove superiority? Or is it a self-sufficient drive to pursue a creative vision, independent of others needs or opinions?

Ayn Rand addresses these questions through her portrayal of Howard Roark, an innovative architect who, as she puts it, struggles for the integrity of his creative work against every form of social opposition.

Initially rejected by twelve publishers as too intellectual,The Fountainheadbecame a best seller within two years purely through word of mouth, and earned Rand enduring commercial and artistic success.

The novel was also a personal landmark for Rand. In Howard Roark, she presented for the first time the uniquely Ayn Rand hero, whose depiction was the chief goal of her writing: the ideal man, man as he could be and ought to be.

In her first notes forThe Fountainhead, Ayn Rand describes its purpose as a defense of egoism in its real meaning . . . a new definition of egoism and its living example. She later states its theme as individualism versus collectivism, not in politics, but in mans soul; the psychological motivations and the basic premises that produce the character of an individualist or a collectivist.

The living example of egoism is Howard Roark, an architect and innovator, who breaks with tradition, [and] recognizes no authority but that of his own independent judgment. Roarks individualism is contrasted with the spiritual collectivism of many of the other characters, who are variations on the theme of second-handedness thinking, acting, and living second-hand.

Roark struggles to endure not merely professional rejection, but also the enmity of Ellsworth Toohey, beloved humanitarian and leading architectural critic; of Gail Wynand, powerful publisher; and of Dominique Francon, the beautiful columnist who loves him fervently yet is bent on destroying his career.

The Fountainheadearned Rand a lasting reputation as one of historys greatest champions of individualism.

Have you thought of your potential clients?

Yes, said Roark.

TheClient, said the Dean. The Client. Think of that above all. Hes the one to live in the house you build. Your only purpose is to serve him. You must aspire to give the proper artistic expression to his wishes. Isnt that all one can say on the subject?

Well, I could say that I must aspire to build for my client the most comfortable, the most logical, the most beautiful house that can be built. I could say that I must try to sell him the best I have and also teach him to know the best. I could say it, but I wont. Because I dont intend to build in order to serve or help anyone. I dont intend to build in order to have clients. I intend to have clients in order to build.

How do you propose to force your ideas on them?

I dont propose to force or be forced. Those who want me will come to me.

View post:

The Fountainhead - AynRand.org

Brad Morris doesnt want your pity. He doesnt want your guilt. He doesnt even want you to think about other people. He wants you to save your own butt, because if you put all your efforts into saving yourself, you just might save him by accident.

You should ventilate, you should wear a mask, you should vaccinate not because you care about anyone else, screw everyone else, he says. You should do this because its going to help you not contribute to incubating variants that are going to come back and bite you in your ass.

He does think theres still plenty of room to appeal to the kindness of others; plenty of people are good and kind and want to do right by people, he says. But for the ones who just dont seem to get it that walking around carrying and incubating a virus that preys on weakened immune systems is a bad thing, his messaging has changed: Forget about helping others on purpose and embrace the value of selfishness.

Angry as his sentiment might be, theres actually a lot of selflessness in it. Morris, a power-wheelchair user whose physical disabilities can lead to potentially dangerous respiratory problems if he were to contract COVID-19, doesnt want people to get the virus and end up in their own wheelchair nor to end up having to turn to GoFundMe, as he did, to raise the money to buy one.

He worries that people are not thinking of the possibility of being injured or disabled by long-COVID. Thats a sentiment shared by Scarlet Novak, another power-wheelchair user who, despite staying masked and largely removed from the company of others these past two years, got a flu from (they suspect) a few seconds at the doctors office when they were both unmasked.

I just feel like a lot of people are not taking [COVID] as seriously as they should be, Novak says. There are still people who could get sick and be hospitalized because of it.

In February, the Center for American Progress reported that COVID-19 created 1.2 million more people with disabilities in the United States. The article cites U.S. Board of Labor Statistics estimates that roughly 496,000 of those people newly defined as disabled because of COVID complications are in the workforce.

But people are tired of COVID stories. Sources and casual friends alike have told me dozens of times that they no longer listen to or watch the news because its all about COVID. Out in public, few people still wear masks, and mass gatherings and events are proceeding like its 2018 again. And Morris says the world sometimes seems eager to look past people with disabilities as everyone turns back to a normal that a lot of people cant join in on.

He suggests efforts towards harm reduction, not mandates and laws; on getting people to think of simpler things, like considering masks, not because you might get sick, but because someone else might.

But hes not bothering to appeal altruism anymore.

Step one seems to be coming across as human so people will listen to you, he says. Maybe we cant do that and our only, our last, our best hope is to find ways of appealing to peoples self-interest.

Go here to see the original:

diSConnected: Is Ayn Rand or Mother Teresa better for protecting South Carolinians with disabilities? - South Carolina Public Radio

AMAC members are familiar with the weekly poll on our website where we ask their take on an issue or item(s) in the news.But it is the comments section where members can really sound off. A good week has 500-700 comments.However, this week we garnered over 1,300 comments, the most since October 29, 2021.

We want our members to make pointed selections from the choices offered, limited to two maximum, and therefore intentionally eschew an all of the above selection.That helps AMAC discern priorities and what is most important.

Our ask this week was about the top priorities of The Left. There was a near three-way tie between growing government to control us, indoctrinating kids as early as elementary school, and open borders to get illegal aliens voting later. Creating dependency, a Green New Deal industrial policy, and a post-gender unisex world were the also-ran choices.

The one theme easily spotted in the comments was how The Left is totally absorbed with power and control in all that it does and proposes.Heres a selection from AMAC members, in their own words:

I feel like I am seeing the destruction of everything good about America in real time. The political class seems hell bent on ruining every institution, every aspect of American life. Anna

Read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand; she and Orwell both described the future we are living now. Dan M.

Its all by design to usher in The New World Order. Karen

Its disgusting what theyre doing to America, and its disgusting how theyre getting away with it day after day. Audrey

When good men do nothing, evil rules. Time for good men to step up. David M.

Americans better wake up or there will be no freedoms. Bonnie

They dont believe in American exceptionalism. Carolyn

I dont understand why the left hates America so much. Charlene M.

The [Democrats] at the wheel and behind the scenes are focused on turning us into a society so dependent and submissive to government. Patti

The lefts main goal? See Hunger Games.- John

Their goal is to keep the situation stirred up to confuse a pubic not able to focus on more than one thing. Tom C.

Create non-self-thing robots and destroy Christianity. Kate S.B.

They are doing this for a purpose to destroy society. David

My heart breaks for what the Democratic part has become. My father was a Democrat who understood an intact traditional family is crucial to the fabric of society. L.J.P.

Any chance of a future for my grandchildren in this country which I love deeply and fought for is growing bleaker by the second right now. William L.

How on Gods earth are we going to continue on this very dark road? Maria

Their priorities are power and control; those [poll] options are the means by which to achieve it. Alyson W.

To fundamentally change America from founding beliefs that will erase our history. Joe

We need to have a Convention of States to restore the power back to the states, where it rightfully belongs, as our Constitution was written! Roscoe

Any country or people who turn away from God get exactly what we are witnessing in America. Gary

Total and complete subjugation of the entire population just as Venezuela went from rich to poor in 3 years, we are on that track. Cyncro

My question- what is being done to stop this? Judith

The party of slavery continues to promote slavery in any and all form. They support anything and everything that enslaves a person physically, mentally, and spiritually. Rick

Jeff Szymanskiworks in political communications atAMAC, a senior benefits organization with nearly 2.4 million members.He previously taught high school economics for 15 years.

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A foundation of the folklore of the American right is the story of how National Reviews William F. Buckley, in the early- to mid-1960s, cast the John Birch Societyand by extension the entire kooky, conspiracist wing of the rightout of the conservative movement.

This was part of a larger struggle for the soul of the right. Older conservative publications such as the American Mercury, which had once been the home of such luminaries as H.L. Mencken and Henry Hazlitt, had turned into a forum for antisemitic conspiracy theoriesbefore eventually being taken over outright by neo-Nazis. The response was an effort by Buckley and other conservative thinkers, with the help of political frontmen Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, to create a conservative movement with more ideological and philosophical substanceone based not on conspiracy theories or mere reactionary emotions but on ideas. (Too bad he also tried to get rid of Ayn Rand.)

Looking at American politics today, it sure looks like this seminal conservative achievement is unraveling. The Birchers are back. And theyre winning.

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The John Birch Society, to refresh your memory, was started in 1958 by a conservative businessman who thought President Eisenhower was secretly a Soviet agent. It had a certain kind of cracked appeal as an easy explanation for various setbacks in the early years of the Cold War. The Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, the Communist takeover of China, the Soviet development of nuclear weaponsthese werent the results of Western mistakes, or large and difficult-to-control social forces, or just the fortunes of war. No, it was all a secret plot, and THEY were lying to you.

This worldview was tremendously popular, more popular than todays conservatives would probably like to admit. In 1962, Barry Goldwater complained, Every other person in Phoenix is a member of the John Birch Society. Im not talking about commie-haunted apple pickers or cactus drunks. Im talking about the highest cast of men of affairs.

The Birchers had such a big following on the right that Buckley, Goldwater, and Reagan hemmed and hawed for years before breaking with them. Even then, it took repeated denunciations, combined with the Birchers increasing notoriety as a national laughingstock, to eventually reduce their appeal and relegate them to the crazy fringes.

Consider the elements of this history:

We have a conspiracy theory that explains everything conservatives think has gone wrong in the world by positing the machinations of a secret cabal that controls everything from the intelligence agencies to the schools.

We have the rapid spread of these crackpot theories to otherwise normal and respectable people in the rank and file of the movement.

We have an attempt to make the conspiracists into the ultimate representatives of opposition to totalitarian communism, and a corresponding attempt to dismiss any conservative critics of the conspiracists as weak-kneed appeasers handing over the country to its enemies.

We have the uneasy balancing act of conservatives in the media and in politics who dont want to denounce the crackpots for fear of angering their partys base.

Isnt this also precisely the state of conservatism today?

We tend to think that our culture war is something new, rising out of the unique challenges of our own era. But youd be surprised how much of it is just the same old culture war being endlessly rehashed.

Todays equivalent of the John Birch Society is the QAnon conspiracy theory, an online grift that got out of hand and became a worldview. It posits its own spectacularly implausible conspiracy theory: That there is a global network of pedophiles who secretly run the world and control our politics so that they can abuse children. This conspiracy theory has in turn spawned other conspiracy theories which claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. It is currently being mainstreamed in attacks on Disney as a corporation bent on grooming children to prepare them for exploitation by pedophiles.

And where are todays conservative leaders, the intellectuals and politicians, the Buckleys and Reagans, who have the authority to shut this down?

Well, Ben Sasse wrote a piece once. But most of todays conservative and Republican leaders are actually trying to hitch themselves to the new John Birchers.

Donald Trump famously refused to denounce the QAnon crazies, describing them only as people who are against pedophiliathe most flattering possible description of the group. Its like saying that the John Birchers were against communism. In both cases, the actual salient characteristic of these groups is their wild, paranoid, evidence-free conspiracy theories.

Trumps sympathy for QAnon helped ease it into the conservative mainstream, and we can see the results in two recent incidents.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is the leading candidate to become the sane Trumpa Republican who can harness Trumps populist appeal, but in a disciplined and calculating way. But after DeSantiss defenders rushed out to assure everyone that his bill targeting teachers was not a Dont Say Gay Law and was not animated by anti-homosexual bias, his press secretary Christina Pushaw declared that the bill would be more accurately described as an Anti-Grooming Bill, adding, If youre against the Anti-Grooming Bill, you are probably a groomer. A groomer, for those who are fortunate enough not to know, is a child predator who manipulates his victims to prepare them to accept abuse.

So much for being the sane Trump.

The idea that gay teachers are predators preparing to groom children is an old trope with a history in Florida. You may recall that previous iterations of the culture war attempted to ban homosexuals from teaching jobs. But more significant is the way this claim taps into the QAnon conspiracy theory. The whole base of QAnon is the dangerous delusion that their enemies are all secret pedophiles. This is the line that has been taken up by conservatives and endlessly repeated, including in a conservative campaign to boycott the Walt Disney Company (and also to subject it to land-use and antitrust regulations) as a political reprisal for opposing the Florida law. And why not if, as authoritarian conservative Rod Dreher puts it, Disney has gone groomer?

Taking a bill with many serious problemsa vaguely worded restriction and an enforcement mechanism designed to facilitate legal harassmentand characterizing any criticism of it as grooming and as support for pedophiles and predators has created an atmosphere of constant, vicious defamation aimed at any and all opponents. This is being egged on, of course, by the usual unscrupulous carnival barkers.

This mode of conspiracy thinking was also reflected in the scurrilous conduct of the Senate hearings for Ketanji Brown Jackson, when Senator Josh Hawley pandered to the QAnon vote by trying to portray the judges past sentencing work as soft on pedophiles. Many people, including conservative authors such as National Reviews Andrew McCarthy, have debunked the smear, showing that Judge Jacksons sentences were in line with the consensus view of other judges.

But once given this talking point, the crazies will chant it forever as if it is the gospel truth. Except that practically everyone is one of the crazies now. Hence the spectacle of Mollie Hemingway, of the Federalist and Fox News, trying her hardest to imply that Mitt Romney is a secret pedophile.

Which makes as much sense as Eisenhower being a secret communist.

From the top down, the Birchers have won. They now own the conservative movement and the Republican party.

Conspiracy theories have consequences. If you have been arguing these issues on social media, you will find that in among the groomer smears lobbed around carelessly there is an undertone of menace, with reminders that we know what to do with pedophiles. Before this is all over, someone is going to take this groomer and pedo talk literally. There will be blood.

We should also remember what conservatives accomplished by purging their crazies the last time around: By basing the movement on substantive ideas and having the courage and self-discipline to purge the kooks who claimed to be on our side, we achieved a few little things like pulling the U.S. out of the national malaise of the 1970s and winning the Cold War, followed by a period of peace, prosperity, and the spread of free societies across the globe. It wasnt just good for the movement, it was good for the country and the world.

If we want to experience anything like those triumphs again, we need build new institutions defined by pro-liberty ideasand we need to push the conspiracy theorists back to the fringes.

Read more from the original source:

Did the John Birch Society Win in the End? - The Bulwark

Matthew Taylor, who leads the NHS Confederation, rightly points to the consequences of the governments living without restrictions ideology (Covid threat being ignored in England for ideological reasons, say NHS leaders, 11 April). Boris Johnson sympathises with the libertarian ideologues in his party who like to invoke Ayn Rand. Perhaps they should note the warning attributed to her that we can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality.

The insulting response from a No 10 spokesperson to Taylors accusation that the NHS feels abandoned shows that Johnson hopes to defy reality, as he has throughout the pandemic. To add further insult, the No 10 spokesperson adds that we are now able to manage [Covid] as we do with other respiratory infections, despite the NHSs daily experience blowing a hole in such Bolsonaro-esque bravado. Calum PatonEmeritus professor of public policy, Keele University

Having followed the progress of the pandemic in the UK closely, I am amazed at the relaxed attitude the government has to a death toll that equates to a Lockerbie disaster daily, or the total number of UK deaths in the Falklands conflict. I am appalled that the governments response is to close their eyes and put their collective fingers in their ears while all the time humming la-la-la-de-da. Public interest has waned to an unfortunate level.

The press should be making more noise. Perhaps refining the death statistics to show the age distribution of the current deaths would personalise the numbers. Perhaps people would then feel vulnerable and act more cautiously, to the benefit of all of us.David HastingsBalbeggie, Perthshire

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Boris Johnsons Covid bravado insults the NHS and the public - The Guardian