Category Archives: Ayn Rand

Readers may find below descriptions of child sacrifice disturbing.

As the Supreme Court deliberates on the right to life in Dobbs v. Jackson, the pro-abortion crowd is getting more and more defensive and some of the most vicious attacks are from those who claim to be in the church.

Last September, the House of Representatives considered a bill to effectively solidify the national right to abortion access, which San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone called something one would expect from a devout Satanist, not a devout Catholic. He added: This proposed legislation is nothing short of child sacrifice.

Naturally, the pro-abortion crowd didnt take kindly to this admittedly provocative language, eliciting comments from, among others, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (a lifelong professed Catholic). But based on how many pro-abortionists talk about abortion, perhaps Cordileone isnt far off.

In a Feb. 5 article in The Washington Post, Rev. Kaeley McEvoy at Westmoreland Congregational United Church of Christ in Bethesda, Md., discussed her thinking on abortion. When she and her boyfriend got pregnant together, the very first place they went was a cathedral to pray but not for grace to persevere through an unplanned pregnancy. No, McEvoy actually called a doctors office while inside the place of worship to schedule an abortion. When other visitors to the cathedral tried to enter a small chapel where McEvoy was on the phone, the boyfriend turned them away, declaring: Something holy is happening here.

Among the pro-abortion crowd, abortion is increasingly no longer described as a necessary evil, but holy. The Post suggested McEvoy views it as a social and theological good. In a November sermon, McEvoy told her congregation that she never felt more known and heard and loved by God than when I entered the doors of a Planned Parenthood. At a January event addressing a group of abortion access activists meeting in a D.C. church, she reiterated: Something holy is happening here, friends.

McEvoy is not alone among clerics in this sentiment about abortion. Presbyterian minister Rebecca Todd Peters in an October USA Today op-ed wrote: I did not make my abortion decisions despite my Christian identity and faith, but rather because of it. Rabbi Rachael Pass in a September article claimed her abortion during rabbinical school was a blessing and a sacred choice. Everything about her experience, Pass observed, from the timing of the accidental conception to the decision and procedure itself was brimming with my Jewish practice, learning and living.

Similar language can be found in less explicitly religious fora. A December article by Rae Guerra-Lorenzo on the Planned Parenthood website asserted that abortion is sacred, because womens reproductive health is sacred. I am here because of abortionsomeone down the line of ancestors knew when it was and wasnt time for expanding their family, she continued. My own children are here because of abortion.

An article at the libertarian Ayn Rand Institute called abortion a secular sanctity, and explains that abortion allows women to protect whats sacred about life.

It is a curious, if rhetorically clever, reversal on the oft-quoted pro-life lines that every child is a blessing and that every human life is sacred. It is not the conception of human life and bringing that baby into the world that is a sacred blessing, they say, but the elimination of that organism in the womb that is the truly holy act.

Wrapping abortion in the language of faith and sometimes even specific religious traditions would seem to suggest that such persons view it as an actual manifestation of their religious belief. As people of faith, we abort, they seem to say.

In that respect, we can better appreciate Cordileones comments, which orient us to the ubiquity of religiously motivated child sacrifice across much of the ancient world. Ancient sources including Cleitarchus, Porphyry, Philo of Byblos, and the Book of Kings describe the Canaanite groups of the Levant regularly performing child sacrifice in attempts to placate various divinities.

Their cousins the Carthaginian civilization defeated and destroyed by Rome during the Punic Wars sacrificed children as offerings to their gods. The Quran also mentions pagan Arabians sacrificing their children to pagan gods.

Nor was this practice limited to the civilizations of the Mediterranean basin. The Aztecs of present-day Mexico sacrificed thousands of people, including many children, to the god Huitzilopochtli in their capital at Tenochtitlan in order to bring good weather for their seasonal crops. An archeological site in Peru recently uncovered 140 children ritually sacrificed in what appears to be a single ceremony the historical event occurred around 1450 A.D. and involved ripping the childrens hearts out. Ritual killings of children still occur in Uganda today.

Undoubtedly the practitioners of ritual child sacrifice across practically every human continent believed their act to be a holy one. The child must die, they believed, for the survival of their society: a sacred rite for the wellbeing of mothers, fathers, and the broader civilization.

Of course, the vast majority of the pro-abortion camp does not believe the organism inside the mothers womb is a human life it is only a chia seed-size embryo, as feminist columnist Monica Hesse recently called it, or a clump of cells, as they often tell us. Most who promote and procure abortions have not yet descended into actually using the bodies of the unborn in religious rituals to appease their gods although fetal tissue research, used as it is for the secular, utilitarian gods of science and progress, gets us pretty close.

But the language of the pro-abortion movement, especially among those who wear clerical garb and use religious honorifics, should give us pause. Even if they cloak that life in the womb with the language of embryo, cells and fetus, it is quite another thing to label its destruction holy and sacred.

It is, after all, life, a living organism. Something living and growing is destroyed for the sake, so they say, of the mothers life and wellbeing. A sacrifice is made, which, its advocates say, is cause for celebration. But that is not a holy thing. It is horrific.

Casey Chalk is a senior contributor at The Federalist and an editor and columnist at The New Oxford Review. He has a bachelors in history and masters in teaching from the University of Virginia and a masters in theology from Christendom College. He is the author of The Persecuted: True Stories of Courageous Christians Living Their Faith in Muslim Lands.

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Leftists And So-Called Christian Leaders Embrace Abortion As 'Sacred' - The Federalist

What does it look like to take Ayn Rand seriously? Leading scholars of Objectivism show us in the newly released paperback edition.

A Companion to Ayn Rand was first published in 2016. The volume is part of Wiley-Blackwells Blackwell Companions to Philosophy series. Typically for hardcover books from academic presses, the original price was a prohibitive $140 (the e-book was similarly priced). It is, therefore, a cause for celebration that late last year, the Companion became available in paperback with a drastically reduced price. (The e-book is now priced similarly, too.) This makes the Companion moreaccessible to anyone interested in deepening their understanding of Rands philosophy.

The Companion was conceived in the early 2000s by the late Allan Gotthelf, who coedited the volume with Gregory Salmieri. (Gotthelf passed away in 2013, leaving much of the editorial work to Salmieri.) The product of their effort contains sixteen chapters on every major area of Rands thought, plus a biographical chapter and an introduction to the study of Rand. Each chapter is written by authors who have made mastering Rands works and philosophy a significant part of their careers.

The publication of the Companion was a significant milestone in scholarship on Rand. Academic presses often publish edited collections to introduce students and scholars to important historical figures or fields of study. Wiley-Blackwells Companions to Philosophy series features volumes on Aristotle, Hobbes, Spinoza, Kant, and most of the traditional canon of Western thought. In 2016, Blackwell added A Companion to Ayn Rand to the series.

The book begins with An Introduction to Ayn Rand by Salmieri (available free online). Salmieri urges readers to take Ayn Rand seriously and offers the Companion as an aid in doing so. To take an author seriously means, he explains, to read her, not with an eye toward confirming ones prejudices (whether favorable or unfavorable), but simply with an eye to understanding what she thinks and why. Unfortunately, Salmieri has plenty of examples of commentators who recognize Rands influence but fail to take her seriously.

Salmieris advice, though, doesnt apply only to critics. He makes the case that even Rands fans have work to do to really take Rand seriously: if she strikes you as obviously correct with respect to an issue where you know many people find her views counterintuitive, it means working to identify the premises that you share with her and not with them, and then figuring out how to determine whether those premises are true.

The book promises to help readers live up to the demands of taking Rand seriously, and it delivers. As Salmieri explains in his introduction, part of what it means to take a philosopher seriously is to relate her views to their alternatives. Accordingly, much of the volume is devoted to such comparisons across the whole of Rands thought.

For example, Salmieris chapter, The Objectivist Epistemology, contrasts Rand with Enlightenment advocates of reason. In the chapters first section, Salmieri explains what Rand has in common with figures like Bacon and Locke. Each philosopher sees reason as essentially involving guidance for acquiring knowledge and seeks to give knowledge a solid foundation. But Rand offers different principles of guidance because she has a different view of how we form the building blocks of our knowledge, our abstract concepts. Locke returns later in the volume as a point of comparison in chapter 8 on political theory. Authors Fred Miller and Adam Mossoff contrast Rand with natural rights theorists and other advocates of individual rights.

READ ALSO: Objectivism Q&A with Aaron Smith and Mike Mazza

Another component of taking a philosophy seriously is evaluating how it responds to criticism. In chapter 7, Darryl Wright considers the objection that Rands advocacy of individual rights is incompatible with her egoism. Since Rand is an egoist, it is incumbent upon her to show that respecting the rights of others is in ones interest. The objection is that Rand fails to show this, leaving the obligation to respect the rights of others unsupported. Wrights reply clarifies several points in social philosophy by which Rand supports the need to respect rights. In doing so, he also explains Rands principle that each man is an end in himself and differentiates it from the Kantian principle with which many readers confuse Rands.

Seasoned Rand fans might expect a chapter on Rands political commentary to tread familiar water. However, chapter 15, by the late John David Lewis and Gregory Salmieri, contains, in my view, some of the books most original material. Titled A Philosopher on Her Times, Lewis and Salmieris subject is Rands political and cultural commentary following the publication of Atlas Shrugged. Our subject in this chapter is Rands distinctive view of the philosophical roots and meaning of the events of her time especially the events of the 1960s and 1970s when she was most active as a commentator on current events. The authors integrate twenty-five years worth of material to argue that Rands political writings have a unified theme. One significant value of this chapter, especially to younger Rand fans, is Lewis and Salmieris work contextualizing the historical events Rand is discussing.

When the book was first published, ARI conducted audio interviews with several contributors: Harry Binswanger, Adam Mossoff, Jason G. Rheins, Gregory Salmieri and Tara Smith.

A Companion to Ayn Rand is available now in paperback. The book is a must-have for any Rand fans library.

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

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A Companion to Ayn Rand Now in Paperback - New Ideal

Today marks the birthdate of one Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum, best known to the world as Ayn Rand.

Rand was born in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1905, witnessing the tremendous upheaval caused by war and communist revolution firsthand,

In 1926, she immigrated to the United States and pursued the classic American dream of becoming a screenwriter in Hollywood. Though she had limited success on the film and theatrical scene, she found her calling as a novelist.

In her early novels like We The Living, Anthem and The Fountainhead, she explored themes that would come to define her: the tyranny of the state against the individual, the menace of collectivistic philosophies and the will of individuals to triumph over oppression.

Her magnum opus Atlas Shrugged was published in 1957. The more than 1,000-page book tells the story of heroic, productive individuals and entrepreneurs suppressed by meddling bureaucrats. It was through this novel that Rand extensively spelled out her core philosophy celebrating rational self-interest, reason and individualism.

Its an approach perhaps best summarized by a key line in the novel, I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.

Atlas Shrugged would go on to become an international success and a major influence on free market-minded conservatives and libertarians.

Until her death in 1982, Rand continued to write and appear on television programs valiantly defending individualism and capitalism, which she understood was essential to freeing individuals to put their creative energies to use.

Capitalism was the only system in history where wealth was not acquired by looting, but by production, not by force, but by trade, the only system that stood for mans right to his own mind, to his work, to his life, to his happiness, to himself, she wrote in Capitalism: The New Ideal.

While Rand is certainly a polarizing figure, with collectivistic progressives who usually havent read a single page of her work seemingly the most bothered by her, Rands personal story and extensive intellectual contributions to the cause of liberty are worthy of respect and critical engagement.

Link:

Happy birthday to the great Ayn Rand Daily Breeze

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.

Read more from the original source:

The Fountainhead - AynRand.org

There are those who argue that the underlying cause of the angst and anger that fuels Americas incendiary political tribalism is the tenuous finances and fading prospects of a large number of Americans.

It is a plausible argument given the continuing and dramatic increase in the concentration of wealth in the hands of a relative few while more than half of Americans have little if any savings and live from paycheck to paycheck.

And, while even the poorest American is better off than most people in the world, that fact provides little consolation for those for whom the American Dream is but a shimmering mirage.

Essential elements of a middle-class lifestyle like health care, housing and higher education are increasingly beyond the reach of more and more Americans whose economic well-being has stagnated or declined while that of the top 20% has disproportionately improved.

This wealth and income imbalance is blamed on an economic system that primarily promotes and maintains the advantage of an increasingly entrenched economic elite.

Democrats blame Republicans, Republicans blame Democrats, and both parties continue to receive torrents of money from the forces of greed to ensure that the current economic system remains in place.

The perception that the Monopoly game is rigged so that most Americans can never land on Park Place isnt doing much for social cohesion as reflected in our belligerently and intractably self-certain bipolar politics that have spilled into every crevice of American life.

Americas looney left and wacko right continue to plumb new depths of mutually antagonistic asininity.

So now political tribal identity includes positions on patriotism, science, vaccination, mask wearing, what books kids can read and how history is taught, what vocabulary can be used, climate change, alternate energy, even the kind of car you drive electric or gas.

Typically, the tribal discord distills to a debate between simplistic, stereotypical understandings of capitalism and socialism that so appeals to those who perceive the entire universe of human thought and possibility as a simple dichotomy between left and right ideologies. Ayn Rand versus Karl Marx.

If the root cause of Americas social delamination is indeed economic, is capitalism the culprit?

While Americas market capitalism has stimulated more scientific and technological advancement, and created more wealth for more people than ever in human history, it has also encouraged insatiable greed, rapacious exploitation, ruinous environmental degradation, debasement of labor, and a winner-take-all mentality that has transmogrified capitalism into a Darwinian economic jungle.

A few get fat while many get eaten.

Virtually everything in America has become a profit center health care, justice, education, charity, even religion. We are increasingly a transactional society in which just about anything can be commodified to extract as much money from as many as possible into the pockets of as few as possible.

For example, Americans have been conditioned to believe that a college degree is a prerequisite for a comfortable level of affluence, and mostly it has been. Not that long ago, most anyone with the academic qualifications could get a college education if they wanted it.

But, today, the cost of attaining that education is so unconscionably high that many qualified students must forego college or incur mortgage-sized debt to pay for it. Meanwhile, college chancellors and a burgeoning administrative staff are given ever more lavish salaries and benefits.

Is the nation better off if more of its people get a higher education or if higher education is made a profit center for avaricious administrators?

Another example of cannibal capitalism is the law that prohibits Medicare from negotiating pricing with Big Pharma allowing the latter to price-plunder the public. Both duopoly parties have been complicit in allowing this predatory greed that threatens the well-being of so many Americans.

We could fill pages with similar examples from most every sector of our economic jungle.

The shills of ideological idiocy, abetted by the forces of greed, want to convince us that our only choice is between two mutually exclusive approaches to organizing an economy, capitalism and socialism one totally right, the other totally wrong.

Neither is either.

They are a toolbox of ideas, each incomplete alone but useful as a set, to use to various degrees as needed to run and adjust an economy.

Many other countries with advanced market economies, including much of Western Europe, Canada and Australia, have demonstrated an effective mix of capitalism and socialism. Effective meaning a high degree of social stability, contentment and economic comfort among their people which tends to dampen desire for revolution.

Some people say that America has already become too socialistic because it taxes and spends so much. But, if spending tax money defines socialism, then defense, infrastructure, law enforcement, public education and corporate subsidies are socialism.

Rather than throw the baby out with the bath water, maybe it is better to consider what we spend tax money on.

Who and how many benefit from spending hundreds of billions of tax dollars annually on the military-industrial complex?

Are the majority of Americans better off because America spends more on defense than that of the next 10 highest spending nations combined, or would more Americans benefit by spending less on defense and more on public health and higher education?

In America, the forces of greed want us to believe that only free markets solve all problems and that government should not interfere in the magic. That line might have worked when America had vast unexploited frontiers and a much smaller population, but not today.

The obsession with the rugged individualism of a bygone frontier era or romanticized in two-dimensional Randian fantasies becomes justification for disregarding the general welfare, often resulting in a callous tolerance for the pain and misery of others blown aside by the winds of fortune.

No society can maintain social stability with an economic order that daily undermines the social contract, disregards the general welfare, and pushes much of its population into chronic anxiety or despair.

What America needs now, as it did in 1932, is a government that will save capitalism from itself. The alternative may be social upheaval that sinks yachts along with dinghies.

Randy Alcorn is a Santa Barbara political observer. Contact him at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), or click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.

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Randy Alcorn: Whats Wrong with America? - Noozhawk

Today marks the birthdate of one Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum, best known to the world as Ayn Rand.

Rand was born in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1905, witnessing the tremendous upheaval caused by war and communist revolution firsthand,

In 1926, she immigrated to the United States and pursued the classic American dream of becoming a screenwriter in Hollywood. Though she had limited success on the film and theatrical scene, she found her calling as a novelist.

In her early novels like We The Living, Anthem and The Fountainhead, she explored themes that would come to define her: the tyranny of the state against the individual, the menace of collectivistic philosophies and the will of individuals to triumph over oppression.

Her magnum opus Atlas Shrugged was published in 1957. The more than 1,000-page book tells the story of heroic, productive individuals and entrepreneurs suppressed by meddling bureaucrats. It was through this novel that Rand extensively spelled out her core philosophy celebrating rational self-interest, reason and individualism.

Its an approach perhaps best summarized by a key line in the novel, I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.

Atlas Shrugged would go on to become an international success and a major influence on free market-minded conservatives and libertarians.

Until her death in 1982, Rand continued to write and appear on television programs valiantly defending individualism and capitalism, which she understood was essential to freeing individuals to put their creative energies to use.

Capitalism was the only system in history where wealth was not acquired by looting, but by production, not by force, but by trade, the only system that stood for mans right to his own mind, to his work, to his life, to his happiness, to himself, she wrote in Capitalism: The New Ideal.

While Rand is certainly a polarizing figure, with collectivistic progressives who usually havent read a single page of her work seemingly the most bothered by her, Rands personal story and extensive intellectual contributions to the cause of liberty are worthy of respect and critical engagement.

Read more from the original source:

Happy birthday to the great Ayn Rand - OCRegister

To the Editor,

Weve got the Democrats, who are saying youre just going to have to suffer because you should have recognized that they were right and done whatever they say; and you have the Republicans, who are saying you should suffer because you deserve to because if you didnt deserve to suffer you wouldnt be suffering, you dumb cluck.

How did we get here?

You see, ever since Reagan theres been this weird philosophy thats crept into almost every nook and cranny of American life. Its called Objectivism, and it was started by doorstop-sized-book-writer Ayn Rand, who literally wrote that selfishness was a virtue. She believed that there should only be one rule, that you do what is best for you and to heck with everyone else.

Somehow, this person became the person we decided to base our society around. Not Jesus, not George Washington, not even Johnny Appleseed. Why? Because it tells the rich people that they deserve to be rich, and its okay that they literally had to destroy millions of lives to get there. This way of thinking is sick, but thankfully we dont have to let it rule us any longer. We must look out for each other, take care of each other, and most of all pursue systems and government that will do the same, instead of continuing down this path of every person for themselves.

Eric Leitzen

Hokah, Minn.

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Letter to the editor about Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right. - Fillmore County Journal

In secret meetings two years ago this month, members of Congress were briefed on what the rest of America would soon learn: A deadly virus was spreading rapidly overseas and headed for the United States. Some lawmakers acted immediatelynot in the publics interest, but in their own. They sold stocks weeks before markets crashed, when the scale of the threat posed by the novel coronavirus became broadly known. A global pandemic was unfolding, and these lawmakers were fretting as much about the health of their financial portfolios as about the health of their constituents.

Congress thought it had already fixed what looked alarmingly like insider trading by its members. In 2012, lawmakers overwhelmingly voted to enact a bill known as the STOCK Act, banning themselves from using information they learned on the job for personal financial benefit. The law required sitting membersalong with their staff and public officials in other branches of the governmentto make more specific and timely disclosures about their financial transactions. Although the law helped the public spot conflicts of interest, it was unable to prevent them. Members hear all kinds of news that essentially may amount to insider trading, but its almost impossible to enforce insider trading and to prove what happened when, Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, a Democrat who has been pushing for years to restrict stock trading by members of Congress, told me.

The Justice Department investigated several senators for their 2020 stock dumps but filed no charges. The allegations of pandemic profiteering did, however, have major political repercussions and helped Democrats win their narrow Senate majority last year. Among those who found their transactions under federal scrutiny were both Republican senators from Georgia, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler (they both denied any wrongdoing), who lost in special elections last January. The Democrat who defeated Perdue, Senator Jon Ossoff, is now leading a new push to ban members from trading individual stocks altogether.

Theres widespread bipartisan disgust with Americas political class, and stock trading by members of Congress is egregious and offensive, Ossoff told me last week.

Legislation that hes introduced along with Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona would require members of Congress, their spouses, and dependent children to either sell their individual stocks or place them in a blind trust. (A bipartisan companion bill was previously unveiled in the House.)

The proposal is, not surprisingly, popular with a public that loves to look down on its lawmakers: Nearly two-thirds of all respondents, including majorities of both Democrats and Republicans, backed the idea of banning members of Congress from trading stocks, according to a recent poll conducted by Morning Consult. Yet the bill is likely to be least popular among the people who actually have to vote on it. If Congress has struggled in recent years to tackle the nations most complex challenges, its track record of policing itself is arguably even worse. Republicans made little effort to pass ethics legislation when they last ran Washington, and although House Democrats did advance a major anti-corruption bill as part of its initial voting-rights push last year, they quickly jettisoned its major ethics provisions in a (thus far unsuccessful) bid to win passage in the Senate.

The proposed ban on stock trading by lawmakers has upended the expected ideological divide. A co-sponsor of the House measure is conservative Representative Chip Roy of Texas, a former top aide to Senator Ted Cruz. The bill has also won the backing of two groups that usually defend unfettered access to the free market, the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks, which emerged from the Obama-era Tea Party. Carrying the libertarian flag instead is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose husband, Paul Pelosi, has made millions in stock trades that have become fodder for amateur trackers on social-media platforms such as Reddit and TikTok. Were a free-market economy. [Members] should be able to participate in that, Pelosi told reporters earlier this month, sounding more like Ayn Rand than a San Francisco socialist.

Read: An exodus from Congress tests the lure of lobbying

The last significant ethics legislation to clear Congress was the STOCK Act a decade ago. Even that bill, however, passed only after party leaders watered down a tougher initial proposal, and within a year of its enactment, Congress quietly acted to roll back one of its key transparency provisions.

The need to regulate stock trading by lawmakers is obvious to the bills supporters, who on this particular issue know well of what they speak. Members of Congress are privy to market-moving information before the general public on a near-daily basis. That is especially true in times of crisis, such as a major military buildup or the onset of a global pandemic, when the stock market is more volatile and lawmakers frequently receive classified briefings from senior government officials. They might not be able to discuss what they heard in public, but until the passage of the STOCK Act, it wasnt clearly illegal for them to make money off it. House and Senate votes are themselves occasionally market-moving events, and lawmakers are usually the first to know whether a measure will pass or fail. One of the authors of the STOCK Act, former Democratic Representative Brian Baird of Washington State, told me that in moments of dark humor during major floor votes, a colleague would joke to him (and he emphasized that he was indeed joking): We could make some money off this vote, right?

In 2012, the authors of the STOCK Act believed an outright ban on stock trades was a bridge too far, Baird told me. But the pandemic-trading scandals propelled calls for new legislation, and more recent disclosures, including a lengthy investigation by Business Insider, have given the push added momentum. So, too, has Pelosis brush-off, which prompted the bills backers to redouble their efforts. I fervently disagree with her, Representative Abigail Spanberger of Virginia told me. Spanberger, a Democrat, first introduced legislation with Roy more than a year and a half ago. Theres many professions where there are limitations placed on what someone can do financially. This requirement is an absolutely reasonable one for those of us who choose to enter this profession.

The proposals would allow members and their families to keep control of investments in diversified mutual or index funds, U.S. Treasuries, and bonds. Kelly told me that in addition to preventing insider trading by lawmakers, requiring members to step back from active control of individual stocks would ensure that they arent taking votes on legislation based on how it would impact them financially.

Adding to the pressure on Pelosi, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has suggested that Republicans might implement a ban if they win back the majority this fall. Pelosi last week softened her stance, telling reporters that although she remained personally opposed to the proposal, if members want to do that, Im okay with that.

The developments over the past month have created a dynamic reminiscent of other successful drives for new congressional ethics laws, Craig Holman, a lobbyist for Public Citizen and a longtime government-reform advocate, told me. The prospects are very good, he said. Sometimes we have to embarrass Congress into doing the right thing, and it works once the public gets involved.

Yet the supporters of a ban on lawmaker stock trading still have a ways to go. Public support for a bill can mask broader private opposition, and the leaders of this most recent effort are mostly members with relatively little experience in Congress. The STOCK Act ultimately passed with near-unanimous votes, but Baird told me that during the years when he was first pitching the bill to colleagues, many took offense at the mere suggestion of impropriety. Others wanted their investments to remain private, and some just didnt want the added inconvenience of having to disclose them. I thought naively that this would be such an obvious right thing to do that when I raised it with people, theyd respond, Gosh, I didnt know that. We should fix it, Baird chuckled ruefully. Well, the response was anything but. After the STOCK Acts passage, Baird said he found himself in an elevator with an aide to a high-ranking Democrat who didnt realize he was speaking with an author of the bill. I gotta go home and fill out my effing paperwork for the goddamn STOCK Act, the staffer complained.

Kelly told me he didnt have much sympathy for members who opposed ethics legislation because of the hassle of complying with it. If you dont want the hassle, find something else to do, he said. There are plenty of folks who could do this job. His retort epitomized the challenges that Kelly and his allies face. They are asking their colleagues to vote for a bill that wont require sacrifice by their constituents, only by themselves. Frankly, I dont mind whose feelings I hurt when I make that case, Ossoff said. My colleagues need to hear it, and I think they are hearing it.

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Why Are Members of Congress Allowed to Trade Stocks? - The Atlantic

And my happiness needs no higher aim to vindicate it. My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose...

I am a man. this miracle of me is mine to own and keep, and mine to guard, and mine to use, and mine to kneel before!

I do not surrender my treasures, nor do I share them. The fortune of my spirit is not to be blown into coins of brass and flung to the winds as alms for the poor of the spirit. I guard my treasures: my thought, my will, my freedom. And the greatest of these is freedom.

I owe nothing to my brothers, nor do I gather debts from them. I ask none to live for me, nor do I live for any others. I covet no man's soul, nor is my soul theirs to covet.

I am neither foe nor friend to my brothers, but such as each of them shall deserve of me. And to earn my love, my brothers must do more than to have been born. I do not grand my love without reason, nor to any chance passer-by who may wish to claim it. I honor men with my love. But honor is a thing to be earned.

I shall choose my friends among men, but neither slaves nor masters. And I shall choose only such as please me, and them I shall love and respect, but neither command nor obey. And we shall join our hands when we wish, or walk alone when we so desire. For in the temple of his spirit, each man is alone. Let each man keep his temple untouched and undefiled. Then let him join hands with others if he wishes, but only beyond his holy threshold. Ayn Rand, Anthem

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Anthem Quotes by Ayn Rand - Goodreads

Heres an opportunity to enrich your life with a deep dive into Ayn Rands soul-fueling novel The Fountainhead.

Its the story of Howard Roarkan independent thinker, architect, and innovator, who refuses ever to compromise his principlesand his battle against the collectivist, tradition-oriented, authority-worshiping status quo. Its theme, as Rand put it, is individualism versus collectivism, not in politics, but in mans soul.

Relevant today, wouldnt you say?

Beginning January 24, renowned Rand scholar Dr. Andrew Bernstein will lead a series of weekly discussions about this rich book and its powerful ideas. Whether youre reading it for the first time or the tenth, youll deepen your understanding and enjoyment of Ayn Rands ode to individualism.

Join Dr. Bernstein and readers from all over the world for a series of fun and enlightening discussions about this path-breaking book.

Full scholarships are available to students and young adults aged 29 and under.

For details or to enroll in The Fountainhead Reading Group, click here.

I hope youll join the discussion!

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.

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The Fountainhead Reading Group with Andrew Bernstein - The Objective Standard