If a political candidate is religious, does that make him theocratic? This topic and more on tonight’s show. See Program Notes, below, for the stories, etc., we plan to discuss.
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Program Notes
Cruz: I’m Not Taking Obamacare Subsidy, I Comply With The Law As Written
Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Clarion Call for Islamic Reformation
Phil Robertson, ‘Duck Dynasty’ Star, Delivers Speech About Atheist Family Getting Raped And Killed
Bowe Bergdahl, once-missing U.S. soldier, charged with desertion
Senate clobbers Obama’s $4 trillion budget plan in 1-98 vote — Here’s the one guy who voted ‘yes’
Don't Let It Go 
Ayn Rand did much of her mature thinking and writing in the 50s and 60s.
During most of that time, abortion was illegal, stores were closed on Sunday, divorce was hard to get, homosexuality was illegal, etc.
If you asked the average person why he supported these laws he’d probably say it has something to do with religion.
Ayn Rand said America was the freest country on earth and never called America or politicians “theocrats.”
Theocrats sounds like a typical leftist word such as Islamophobia, homophobia, etc.
Theocracy and theocrats should be reserved to Saudi Arabia and Iran, for example.
Unfortunately 11pm is past my bed time so I can’t call in.
I think Rick Santorum has theocrat leanings. He has explicitly rejected the “pursuit of happiness,” for example. The use of the term was a discussion-starter, primarily. Were you able to hear the podcast at least?
Oh, I see that the show was yesterday.
I haven’t had the chance to listen to the show. I just think the word is a typical leftist smear word like “homophobia.” Objectivists think homosexuality is wrong, for Galt’s sake. (Rand said it was “disgusting and immoral.”)
Objectivists tend to sound like leftists. I’m sure one of these days I’ll here an Objectivist say opponents of Islamic immigration are “xenophobic” or that “diversity is our strength.”
Based on the Objectivist view that human beings are “blank slates” we’ll probably be told that “race is a social construct.”
Incidentally, I think “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” was a mistake.
It should have been “life, liberty, and property.”
Calling Santorum a theocrat is not a sane position. Its unhinged. By that standard, America until the 1960s was a theocratic state. Another insane position. Pre-60s America was a healthier culture than ours in many ways even though it was less explicitly secular. Just compare the out-of-wedlock numbers for then and now to see how horrible the post 60s era has been. Happiness studies too have shown that people of the pre60s era were happier than now. Yeah theocracy.
Leftism is the modern religion of our age; a religion oriented around out-group altruism and sociopathic equality. It is THAT religion which has a hegemony over modern Western culture, not Christianity. And it seems that Objectivists have significant sympathies with Leftism and get hysterical with “theocracy” and Christianity. You don’t understand that traditional Christianity is dead as a motive power in the Western Europe and Anglo-America. What governs today is the replacement religion of modern Liberalism. Santorum is a liberal Christian who supports most Leftist policies. To refer to him as a Christian “theocrat” ala Calvin’s Genova represents massive ignorance.
Donald Richardson is right. Objectivists sound indistinguishable from secular Leftists on many subjects revolving around religion and culture. Whatever faults Rand had, her novels were all out assaults on the Old Left. She would spit if she were alive today to see the movement that bears her name totally capitulate to the New Left. What do you think she would say about the Left’s demonization of men and of whites that is the reigning orthodoxy of our age? Can you imagine if she were to write Atlas Shrugged today and directing her rage against the Cultural Marxists the way she did the old Marxists. I have a feeling it would make many O’ists uncomfortable as you have many sympathies with the cultural communists of today.
Although I disagree with his anarchism, I find that Stephan Mollyneaux offers FAR superior commentary to EVERYONE in the Objectivist movement. He understands that biology is the foundation of human nature and thus societal organization. And he understands that religion, specifically Christianity, despite its philosophic flaws was an aggregator of the wisdom of trial and error accumulated over the ages. He as some amazing vlogs recently showing how modern biologic science and statistics show that social and sexual liberation has been disastrous for the modern West, especially women. He shows that religion provided a moral fabric that upheld civilization and that the modern world shaped by secular Leftist has destroyed that fabric. No Randian comes anywhere near his level of analysis and intellectual depth on the subject of religion and culture; and he’s still very much an atheist. I wish there were a Randian equivalent of him but I’m not surprised that there isn’t. The movement is too immature.
Objectivists approach religion in a childish manner. The same type of manner that petulant Leftists approach it. Yes, a secular moral philosophy was Rand’s aim and it should be the aim of humanity. But bashing Christianity and calling Rick Santorum a “theocrat” reveals a movement that has no intellectual depth and no reality orientation. The jab that Objectivists are overgrown high school kids that pretend they know everything there is to know does not come out of nowhere, no stereotype does.
A Valmont,
I’m not all that familiar with Molyneux, but what you write strikes me as correct. I can’t remember the last time I’ve read an Objecitvist who tried to bring any aspect of biology or the social sciences to bear on a topic. Much Objectivist writing is formulaic, just referencing this or that talking point. Biddle, in particular, almost seems robotic. His latest lead article for The Objective Standard (“Islamic Jihad and Western Faith”) just repeats the faith, reason, mysticism, etc.line.