Hirsi Ali - Another individualist finds a home

If you don't know who Ayaan Hirsi Ali is, you should. Keep your eye out for her book to be published, and the dialogue sure to follow. She has a pedigree similar to Rand: bright, personal experience from a collectivist culture and oppression, and a courageous individualist.

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Speaking Back to Islamists:
"...she is a fierce partisan of individualism against collectivism."

"Slender, elegant, stylish and articulate (in English, Dutch and Swahili), she has found an intellectual home here at the American Enterprise Institute, where she is writing a book that imagines Muhammad meeting, in the New York Public Library, three thinkers -- John Stuart Mill, Friedrich Hayek and Karl Popper, each a hero of the unending struggle between (to take the title of Popper's 1945 masterpiece) 'The Open Society and Its Enemies.'' Islamic extremists -- the sort who were unhinged by some Danish cartoons -- will be enraged. She is unperturbed."

Less is More - Sprout

I don't know Verne Harnish from Fern Varnish, but I think he did the math backwards in the below praise of collectivism. His own examples would more likely show that the closer you get to the individual, and away from the federal, we see fiscal responsibility. Additionally, there is plenty of evidence in psychology to show that the loss of a sense of control leads to unhappiness and neuroses, whereas a sense of personal control over your life breeds stability and contentment. So, as we support the individual, we are supporting both a better sense of accountability, and the ability to control outcomes, assuming the collective stays out of the way and doesn't try to enforce it's will on you. You could argue that those who are incompetent and lazy are not as happy in an environment of accountability, to which I would ask: "Why build a societal system based on the needs of the lazy?" Rather, build a system which promotes the lazy to act otherwise, and watch happiness grow. The US, associated with individualism more than any other country, continues to have outrageous immigration numbers, i.e. others seeking the "happiness of individual freedoms".

Less is More - Sprout: "Denmark was named the happiest place in the world. Noted Adrian White, an analytical social psychologist at the University of Leicester in central England, “smaller countries tend to be a little happier because there is a stronger sense of collectivism.'

Rereading Thomas Friedman’s classic From Beirut to Jerusalem, the world would be a lot happier if regional cultures hadn’t been forced to form artificial countries. Let Iraq, Afghanistan, and Lebanon go the way of Yugoslavia, breaking up into more culturally aligned mini-countries. And I don’t think it’s coincidental that 42 of the U.S. states expect to run budget surpluses in 2006 while the Federal Government continues to bleed red. The less people lumped together in nation-states, the more fiscally responsible and happy. "

Head-in-the-Sand Liberals - Los Angeles Times

In Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand wrote that John Galt's enemies "did not want to live; they wanted him to die."
She nailed it. The cult of death. The religion at the root of the evil. Go Ayn.

Check out this excellent article by Sam Harris. The current worldwide drive to spread Islam at the blast of a bomb is extreme collectivism. Not only should individuals sacrifice their freedom for the collective, but they should sacrifice their freedom to kill as many other individuals as possible. Go Sam. Tell as many as you can. Readers, that means you too. Time to get very serious about keeping the world from a new Dark Age.

Head-in-the-Sand Liberals - Los Angeles Times: "A cult of death is forming in the Muslim world — for reasons that are perfectly explicable in terms of the Islamic doctrines of martyrdom and jihad. The truth is that we are not fighting a 'war on terror.' We are fighting a pestilential theology and a longing for paradise. "

TimesDispatch.com | New college gets state's approval

Encouraging news. A new college being founded with an Objectivist at the helm. May they produce grads who move on to other institutions and share the dangers of collectivism.

TimesDispatch.com | New college gets state's approval: "Gary Hull, director of the Program on Values and Ethics in the Marketplace at Duke University, will be the college's chairman and chief executive and will serve on the faculty. Another planned Founders faculty member is Eric Daniels, a visiting assistant professor in the Duke program. They are followers of the writings of novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand and objectivism, which embraces 'rational individualism' and laissez-faire capitalism and rejects altruism and collectivism."

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Liberalism as Condescension

Good article by George Will. The WalMart attacks are straight off the pages of Atlas Shrugged. Some good reference numbers.

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Liberalism as Condescension: "Liberals think their campaign against Wal-Mart is a way of introducing the subject of class into America's political argument, and they are more correct than they understand. Their campaign is liberalism as condescension. It is a philosophic repugnance toward markets because consumer sovereignty results in the masses making messes. Liberals, aghast, see the choices Americans make with their dollars and their ballots, and announce -- yes, announce -- that Americans are sorely in need of more supervision by ... liberals. "

Reforming America's Secret Collectivism: The ...[Mackinac Center for Public Policy]

Point of frustration in the battle between Collectivism and Individualism: the Individualists don't try to force you to join them. They don't use the power of the state to prevent you from joining a collective either. But the Collectivists want to prevent you from being an individual. They "know better than you", and you must conform to their ideology or your existence is an obstacle to their goals.

Here's a small bit from a good article on this issue:

Reforming America's Secret Collectivism: The ...[Mackinac Center for Public Policy]: "Reforming America's Secret Collectivism: The System of Compelled Union Representation
A young teacher reads about a job opening at a local school. She applies, completes an interview and is told she will be hired. But there is a catch. In order to have the job, she must pay a certain percentage of her wages to an organization that promotes views different from her own - many of which are on issues entirely removed from those affecting her job. Nearly half of the people working at the school share her opinion of the organization, but the law states that the tribute must be paid by everyone who works there. To make matters worse, every public school in the district is affiliated with this organization.
Consider another scenario: A long-time employee of a manufacturer discovers that just over half of his coworkers have decided to support a new organization. Individual dues to this group are several hundred dollars per year, and its agenda runs counter to his own beliefs. To make matters worse, he likes his employer and has always been treated fairly. He is not alone. But that's too bad; the law compels him to pay the fees and allow the organization to represent him. He must pay the fees or find another job, forgoing years of accumulated goodwill and benefits."

Edge; DIGITAL MAOISM: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism By Jaron Lanier

Interesting essay about the praise being reaped upon "online collectivism". It seems there will always be those who are eagerly looking for proof that a bunch of "common men" have more wisdom than, say a bunch of exceptional men, or even a few brilliant men or women. I'm fascinated and troubled by how quickly people are accepting it. It reminds me of the overt efforts to make news "balanced". What the hell good is balanced news, if you are balancing between a correct interpretation and an incorrect one? I want the truth, as the reporter/org sees it and is willing to support it. I don't want them mixing equal doses of two sides of an argument, to give me a tidy little debate. Give me your honest assessment, and I'll supply my own analysis and debate. Anyway, checkout Jaron's thoughts:

Edge; DIGITAL MAOISM: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism By Jaron Lanier: "In 'Digital Maosim', an original essay written for Edge, computer scientist and digital visionary Jaron Lanier finds fault with what he terms the new online collectivism. He cites as an example the Wikipedia, noting that 'reading a Wikipedia entry is like reading the bible closely. There are faint traces of the voices of various anonymous authors and editors, though it is impossible to be sure'. "

It's not Wal-Mart, stupid; how about important issues? | IndyStar.com

Collectivism's tactics and targets even a five-year-old could figure out. Just watch the most successful companies grow, regardless of industry, and without knowing anything about their practices, and you can predict whom the collectivists will start going after. The largest, most profitable companies. Oh yes, they are all non-union too, but you can guess that from the 'most profitable' attribute. Microsoft, WalMart, Standard Oil, on and on. The collectivists will say, "all that profit and growth is at the expense of some part of society".

Of course, they don't focus on the fact that you get profit and growth by offering many people a product or service that improves their lives, thus the most most successful companies offer the most to the most. However, it's all moot, as the collectivists don't even care about any bad behavior to begin with. They are a powerplay, as they've always been. They care about transferring some of the well-earned clout and power of the successful companies to themselves. Oh, they say it is for the workers, all for the workers, who, uh, just might be inclined to pay hundreds of dollars each in union dues every year. Asked why the labor unions are going after Walmart rather than Kmart...."Walmart's bigger". Cha-ching!

It's not Wal-Mart, stupid; how about important issues? IndyStar.com:

"It's not Wal-Mart, stupid; how about important issues?

We might hope that candidates for Congress this year would present us with ideas to solve the major problems we face in this country. On the economic side, we could really use some creative thinking on, among other subjects, taxes, Medicare, and Social Security.


So what is emerging as one of the big issues for the Democrats?

Wal-Mart."

USATODAY.com

I've never read Karen Hughes before, but she does a good job of summing up perhaps the one sure path for the world to win the war on terrorism. It's depressing, because the path has no obvious recipe for the 'regular guy', but there are people that know. There are grassroots specialists, and historians, and most importantly, there are passionate, decent people. That was the driving sentiment when protests against slavery were heard before our constitution was even written. That was the driving force for MADD. Some times in history people across civilizations look in their mirror and recognize that they've been lying to themselves.

They realize that there is only one decent and logical thing to do for a species that wants to survive it's flaws, and it stands up in groups, then masses, then societies at large, and says 'enough is enough'. No, we don't need to kill every terrorist, but we need enough honest people to physically, or politically, shut down the education and propaganda machines that are educating children to be next generation's terrorist. Millions of Americans grew up with parents that were prejudiced against blacks, indians, irish, etc., but by breaking the education cycle, as a society we began graduating larger and larger classes that shed the failing ideologies of their parents.

"Five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, one essential ingredient is still lacking in our international response to terrorism: the concerted moral outrage of everyday citizens of every faith and country.

The names of the people murdered that morning read like a roll call of the world's family: Ahmed, Alonso, Chung, Fazio, Fitzgerald, Goldstein, Gonzalez, Jablonski, Mbaya, McSweeney, Mohammed, Rizzo, Wallendorf and Zukelman. The victims, citizens of more than 90 countries, included a young Muslim woman, seven months pregnant, on her way to attend a friend's wedding; an Iranian grandmother who had overcome her fear of flying to visit her grandsons in Boston; a German businessman in New York to attend a meeting. His son, 4 at the time, said, “If the terrorists knew how much we love Papa, they wouldn't have flown the plane into the tower.”

USATODAY.com