Quick Roundup 89

Although I have made it clear in the past that I am not a Libertarian, I want to re-state that fact before continuing. My purpose in engaging in conversation at all the self-proclaimed champions of "tolerance" who dominate that movement is simply to help them help the cause of liberty -- by showing their true colors on issues pertinent to that cause.

Tolerance, Part I

Friday must have set some kind of comment record for this blog. Regulars were here in force and I was fielding comments from a blogger who linked to this post, but attempted to argue with me on this post. To summarize the latter:

My Original Point: [This (other) Libertarian] has chosen to attack someone not so much for his views, but for bringing up (however imperfectly) a matter of principle. [This] approach is thus a clear attempt to preclude meaningful debate about political principles. It is indeed a "purge" from the public debate of those who might -- er -- engage in actual, meaningful debate.

Gus Van Horn (explaining a clear implication): And as for being "inclusive" to any degree ... wouldn't you need some way to tell whether someone is a Libertarian?

Careful. Some might call that a "litmus test".

Xrlq: OK Mr. Standards ... I don't pretend to know what the perfect definition of "libertarian" is, if indeed there is one, but I do know that Mona's ain't it, and a stupid and meaningless standard is worse than having none at all. But since neither McQ nor I has advocated that there be no standards, that's really just a red herring anyway.

If one really doesn't know what his standards are, he effectively does not have standards. If he does know, but says he doesn't, then he's hiding something. But in any case, we can see that he has all sorts of "tolerance" -- except towards those who have standards. That is what I meant by accusing "McQ" of conducting a purge in the first place.

This reminds me a little of the time I got another Libertarian, hostile to no one but Ayn Rand, to admit, "This isn't about individual rights."

I really wanted to thank him at that point, but I held my tongue.

Tolerance, Part II

Another Libertarian tourist happened by Friday and then devoted an entire post at his blog to demonstrating that while he knows next to nothing about Ayn Rand or her philosophy, such near-total ignorance will not stop him from feeling and expressing hostililty towards her and it.

I have never read Ayn Rand. Actually, I have barely heard of Ayn Rand. However, today, I had occasion to visit Gus Van Horn's Blog and read this post in which he summarizes Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism.

[He quotes a fragment from a (properly attributed) Peter Schwartz quote.]

"A rational code of morality" is nonsense words strung together as much as "self-interest as a virtue" is. [link dropped]

How the hell does he know that? Talk about "nonsense words strung together"....

In any event, the post did remind me of the following Ayn Rand quote concerning Nietzsche:

Nietzsche's rebellion against altruism consisted of replacing the sacrifice of oneself to others by the sacrifice of others to oneself. He proclaimed that the ideal man is moved, not by reason, but by his "blood," by his innate instincts, feelings, and will to power -- that he is predestined by birth to rule others and sacrifice them to himself, while they are predestined by birth to be his victims and slaves -- that reason, logic, principles are futile and debilitating, that morality is useless, that the "superman" is "beyond good and evil," that he is a "beast of prey" whose ultimate standard is nothing but his own whim. (Quoted from Ayn Rand's "For the New Intellectual" by Harry Binswanger in The Ayn Rand Lexicon, p. 336)

"Nietzsche for Girls" is perhaps a good way to burnish one's credentials as a Libertarian by insulting Ayn Rand. It is, however, also a completely incorrect description of her philosophy since she repudiates sacrifice as such. One implication of this is that traditional attacks against what is often regarded as "selfishness" (i.e., the sacrifice of others to oneself) do not apply to Objectivism.

"Ceasefire" Update

Allah of Hot Air does a superb job of describing the travesty of a cease-fire that was used to hand Lebanon and Israel over to the Party of God:

Israeli commandos staged a raid in the Bekaa Valley last night to stop Syria from resupplying Hezbollah in violation of the UN resolution. Lebanon's defense minister has threatened to halt -- not hurry -- the army's deployment as a result. Which, given the stuff I just blockquoted, is actually for the best.

Update: Resupplying Hezbollah constitutes the third violation of paragraph 8 of the resolution on the Lebanese side. I wrote about the other two violations here. The UN is finally on the case -- and they're blaming Israel, of course[.]

And then there's a very good Jules Crittendon piece on France's role in all this. Here's the money quote: "If we, those of us who enjoy conducting business in English rather than say, Chinese or Arabic, want it to stay that way, I'd suggest step one is that we should continue to state clearly our intentions and do what we say we are going to do. Even when the world doesn't necessarily like what we are saying."

The Religion of Parrots

Isaac Schrodinger describes at length and comments on the asinine Islamic practice of having children memorize the Koran -- even if they do not speak Arabic.

I went to a Pakistani school in Arabia. There, a few kids in my class knew the Quran by heart. These kids were utter jerks but they always got some respect from the teachers and the community for just that useless skill.

Competitions are held within the Muslim community on reciting the Quran and religious poems etc. where these kids show off their impressive Arabic and Urdu pronunciations and win awards and recognition.

Very few care if the kids actually comprehend the material. It's a hollow show.

My $0.02: I think this does teach an important moral lesson, but implicitly. Children are taught that the standard for judging the good is whatever the religious authorities say, regardless of how useless or ridiculous a given action is. The "education" Schrodinger describes seems to have basically nothing to do with preparing anyone for an independent adulthood and everything to do with making children crave approval from others. And all this approval consists essentially of promises for pie in the sky.

No wonder so many Moslems are so willing to take orders, and so indifferent to whether those orders might endanger their own lives!

Blogroll Addition

I neglected to add NCdt(II) Genest to my blogroll the other day when I re-played the fours. I would have to say that, aided by a machine translation, I agree with the commenter to this post, who said, " Bonne analyse des options. La guerre froide continue même après la chute du mur de Berlin de la fin des années 80..."

You'll find the blog listed as "Navalcadetis Minorae".

-- CAV