• • Natural Law vs. Natural Lawlessness 
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Individual Rights  | Self-government is the key to liberty, where we voluntarily restrain ourselves from doing evil that may, or will, harm another. The sort of extremely libertarianism, especially the sort that segues into outright Objectivism, is a hollow reed that can never support a liberty-oriented structure for civil society. Conservatives would do well to reject it, and to hold to the liberty ideology handed down to us by our Founders.  

• • Christ and Capitalism 
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Capitalism  |Egoism  | Capitalism’s lay detractors [...] misunderstand the true nature of economic self-interest. Capitalist philosopher, Ayn Rand, articulated this nature in her essay, “The Virtue of Selfishness.” She points out the obvious truth that Man’s survival is entirely contingent upon “selfish” behavior, i.e. otherwise known as actions taken on behalf of himself and his family. Ignoring this fact, collectivism invariably fails—for everyone. Marshalling the forces intrinsic to this phenomenon, however, Capitalism invariably results in wealth—for everyone.  

• • Aristotle, Marx and a classical education 
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In our own time, Ayn Rand admits that Aristotle was her teacher. Edward W. Younkins says, “She intellectually stood on Aristotle’s shoulders.”  

• Cain’s World 
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[Ron] Paul has Ayn Rand’s domestic policy but Michael Moore’s foreign policy.  

• • • “Zucottis” are not the Sans-Culottes 
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Atlas Shrugged  |The Virtue of Selfishness  |Inaccurate  | Ayn Rand, the author of “Atlas Shrugged” knew Collectivism. Ayn Rand lived Collectivism¬†as a young woman in Revolutionary Russia before escaping to the United States. Many will tout her agnostic Objectivism as a strike against her common-sense brilliance, to this I say, “Pshaw! Socrates was not a Christian or a Jew but we consider his views on life and society. Saint Thomas Aquinas showed us the value of that. Again, no less a Christian luminary of humanity than Mother Theresa oft expressed her despair and doubts regarding how humans treat each other, and despairing moments about God and His Existence. I choose Ayn Rand because she is contemporary, became an American,¬†loved this country, and hated Communism. Her insights are invaluable when evaluating the Occupy Wall Street rabble.  

• • The Risk Taker vs. The Profit Taker 
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Capitalism  | Businessmen are the symbol of a free society—the symbol of America. If and when they perish, civilization will perish. But if you wish to fight for freedom, you must begin by fighting for its unrewarded, unrecognized, unacknowledged, yet best representatives—the American businessmen.—Ayn Rand (1905 – 1982)  

• • Palin Will Fight for Energy and Against Crony Capitalism 
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Atlas Shrugged  |Capitalism  | In her Labor Day speech in Iowa Palin said that cronyism “is not the capitalism of free men and free markets but the capitalism of connections and government handouts”, what Ayn Rand termed “the aristocracy of pull” in Atlas Shrugged.  

• • Tim, Liz and Bev Equals Moe Larry and Curly 
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Atlas Shrugged  |Capitalism  | Liz [Warren] might want to ponder where government would get its resources if those factory builders stopped building factories, or every other business that forms the economic backbone of our nation stopped doing what they do as well. Read “Atlas Shrugged” if you can’t figure it out for yourself.  

• • • Then and Now, Thugs and Looters 
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Personal life  | The paragraphs above are from a bio of Ayn Rand by Barbara Branden. Now you know why Ayn Rand hated Communists.  

• • Obama’s ineligibility: Prepare to defend America — The insanity must be stopped 
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It is a waste of time writing to your elected officials. They only care about their political careers. They are parasites. Ayn Rand described them accurately: “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 favors; when you see that men get rich more easily by graft than by work, and your laws no longer protect you against them, but protect them against you. . . you may know that your society is doomed.”  

• • A Most Wonderful Human Being 
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Hector Benedi had this great quote from Ayn Rand in his “Stupid Frogs” Blog this morning: “It stands to reason that where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there’s service, there’s someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.” - Ayn Rand  

• We Know They Know and United in Hate vs. United We Stand Part II 
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America has strong Judeo/Christian roots, and a long tradition of following Christian principles (natural law). All that’s needed is to pick them up, dust them off, and reinvigorate them. They have been neglected, or merely paid lip-service to, for far too long, by far too many of us. This stance is perhaps the most important difference between true patriotic conservatives, and fiscally conservative Libertarians and Ayn Rand aficionados. It is not enough to be merely fiscally conservative. Without social conservatism, any purely economic conservative moves are simply the equivalent of changing deck-chairs on the Titanic.  

• • Happy Independence Day! 
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The Fountainhead  |The Fountainhead movie  | This is from our Russian Reader who asks God’s Blessing on CFP and other patriots. [....] Today our “KULTURA” TV-channel has gifted me the greatest Independence Day introduction I could never hope for: the good old 1949 “Fountainhead” movie, based on the novel of my favorite Ayn Rand! Ah, what a happy time both me and Gary Cooper had just a few moments ago!  

• • A Conversation About Anti-Semitism 
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Individualism  | “The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.” Ayn Rand  

• • • Energy policy: Atlas can shrug 

Atlas Shrugged movie  |Atlas Shrugged  | In Rand’s most famous novel, the hero, John Galt, has invented a radically new dynamo that promises to make energy superabundant. Ellis Wyatt’s oil fields and Ken Danagger’s coal mines power America. Diesel powers the great railroads. Energy for Rand is the great enabler, what Julian Simon would later codify as the master resource. But for Rand, as for Simon, energy comes from the mind, not the ground. Therefore, it is—or can be–super-abundant, given a pro-achievement socioeconomic system.  

• Filling the leadership vacuum, Paul Ryan addresses the nation 
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Atlas Shrugged  | We hold this truth to be self-evident: Health care is not a fundamental right but merely a service that each of us should buy and pay for like a car wash. As such we would hope to see Medicare and Medicaid killed, not reformed; eliminated, not preserved. But such a leap would require a philosophical revolution whose foundation our country has yet to build and therefore our citizens would not accept. Perhaps President Ryan (who apparently requires his new staff to read Atlas Shrugged) or someone like him can lead us into that Promised Land.  

• • Progressive education & bad philosophy corrupted the people & undermined US Constitution 
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Atheism  |Ayn Rand Institute  | Footnote.
“Metaphysics” deals with the nature of Reality; “Epistemology”, with theories of Knowledge. The Ayn Rand Institute has an excellent lexicon for philosophical terms. Rand was a non-theist; [The author] is a Christian theist.  

• • The Middle East, America, and the culture of liberty 
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A voluntary society [....] has nearly always been driven by Christian charity and the desire to help our neighbor. The secularist alternatives are either Objectivist libertarianism, where you just really don’t give a rip who dies on your doorstep (since we all know philanthropy is just a guilt-trip to get Randian supermen to allow somebody else to make claims upon them), or else mega-state socialism (including, by the way, that perversion of Christianity known as “the social gospel”) where you’re forced to contribute.  

• • Oh America, sweet America, what fate awaits you? 
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Atlas Shrugged  | Ayn Rand, in her book Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957, did an excellent job of forecasting what would happen with the current system. Every big organization, whether it be unions, corporations, NGO’s, associations and the like, all have ‘their man in Washington’ pouring money into the ‘system’ in exchange for political and legislative favors. Every new piece of legislation has one or more special interest groups attached to, or was the author of it. Just about everything that Rand forecast in her book has come true.  

• • Atheism revisited 
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Atheism  |Personal life  | I want to thank the atheists who attempted to straighten me out regarding some points I made in my last article. I didn’t realize that Hitler was such a compassionate Christian, or that the Founding Fathers were such a bunch of confused old farts, and/or enlightened closet atheists, or that atheist Ayn Rand (an Objectivist, not a conservative) was such a paragon of virtue. Nor did I realize that atheists were such upright pillars of our society. I think that’s just wonderful. (If your Sarcasm Detector isn’t blaring shrilly, then you either don’t have one, or it’s turned off).