Mark

Trump Supporter’s House Vandalized The article, by David Martin (who lives in the D.C. area), begins: I was watching the Fox5 10 pm news on Wednesday, March 9, out of Washington, DC, when I saw the shocking report of a woman’s house having been vandalized ... in nearby Gainesville, Virginia, in Prince William County. She had awakened that morning to discover that her two signs supporting Donald Trump for president had been stolen from her front yard and that the words “Can you see the new world through the tear gas” and “Revolution” had been prominently spray-painted in black on separate sides of her modest white frame house. This looks very much like a thuggish and criminal attempt to intimidate people who support a particular candidate for president into silence, and, as such, it is very newsworthy. Such acts should be exposed and denounced, the sooner the better. I checked my home-delivered Washington Post the next morning to see what, if anything, they might have about the matter. Nothing. I went online to see what other news coverage there might be. It was only on the Fox5 web site.

I replied to Salmieri in 173 words saying he has no sense of perspective. That was my first thought. My second and considered thought – not risked on Salmieri's blog – is that Salmieri deliberately exaggerates Trump's flaws because Salmieri hates his policies: no fear of AIPAC, opposition to unrestricted immigration, opposition to TARP/NAFTA/GATT.

I watched the video and replied to Salmieri. In 131 words I say he's all wet.

MereMortal, Yes, for a brief time Peikoff saw the light, part of it. Trouble is, eventually he more or less caved in to Brook. Here’s a transcript of the end of their debate: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LP: I’ll concede this much, if my facts are wrong— YB: [laughs] LP: And I don’t, I didn’t get them from first hand sources, I got them presented by [laughter in his voice, self-deprecating] impassioned radio hosts. YB: [laughing gleefully] Yes. LP: If they’re wrong then obviously I agree with you. And you obviously agree with me: we agree on the principles of who should be excluded et cetera. YB: I think we agree on the principles. LP: So there’s really no philosophic disagreement between us, but there is a factual, and I’m prepared to say that on those type of issues you might [laughter in his voice] be right [laughter from YB]. YB: [Laughter and irony in voice] And I might be wrong. AP (moderator): [interrupting] I think we’ve done a lot of good here. YB: [continues mockingly, seemingly good-natured laughter and irony in voice] I’m even willing to concede that I might be wrong. LP: Now, we are over time. I think the issues have been aired. And I’d like to conclude by saying how much I respect and admire, and [laughter in his voice] probably will come even on detail to agree with, Yaron. And I think this is significant because this is about the biggest issue that we have disagreed about for some time, and I was actually apprehensive about talking to him about this issue. Partly because I didn’t control that I was gonna get all upset, and partly because [laughter in voice] he might refute me, so. But I never at any point regarded him as philosophically defective or non-Objectivist. And I assume you felt the same? YB: Oh absolutely, and I mean this just shows that when you agree on the fundamentals philosophically, yeah there’re going to be disputes about how we interpret, or do we have 50 years, or do we have 20 years, I mean those are reasonable disputes given the complexity of applying philosophy to have, and it should, you know, if we came away with a real disagreement about philosophy that would be a problem. LP: What’s interesting is that the disagreement is essentially over facts. What are these people effect do, [sic] and what will affect this party, and what – so it’s not at all over what should immigration policy be. YB: No, I mean we even agreed, which I wasn’t sure you, we agreed on, on the citizenship versus immigration, because I think that’s something we should highlight and fight for. LP: Yeah, that’s really crucial. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- All very chummy. Then they say their good-byes to the audience, and walk away, one might imagine, arm in arm. That was over two years ago and Mr. Peikoff has said nothing about immigration since. Apparently he learned to love open immigration, again. A momentary burst of sanity, then back to business as usual. ARI continues to issue media promoting open immigration today, under the auspices of Mr. Peikoff. There’s much more at Leonard Peikoff on Yaron Brook and Immigration from which the above is excerpted. Mark

I want Trump to win mainly because his stand on immigration is a huge step in the right direction. I want him to win despite the valid criticisms against him. His supporters need to take care not to “evaluate in reverse” and think they must defend his errors, such as trying to use eminent domain for no good reason, just because they prefer him over the other presidential candidates. For example, consider the following stupidity from a Trump supporter we could do without: In this case Trump was a jerk. That’s too bad, he’s still far and away the best man among today’s presidential contenders. By the way, Binswanger opposes Trump – another reason to like Trump. See Binswanger’s post: FutureOfCapitalism.com/comments/9016 and my response: FutureOfCapitalism.com/comments/9026

Many Objectivists disagree with Rand about the half dozen subjects mentioned in: Ayn Rand on Immigration. Try them on your friends.

“The annointed one” by Kelleigh Nelson There’s more in the article.

There’s some truth in the first part of what Flea quoted of Bandler. The communist movement was indeed a jewish movement whose leaders in Russia systematically murdered millions of people. (Google Leon Trotsky, Lev Kamenev, Grigory Zinoviev, Genrikh Yagoda, Leonid Reichman, or Lazar Kaganovich – the spelling of the names varies.) Bandler is wrong to restrict their victims to gentiles though naturally almost all were. Bandler goes off the deep end with the payback business. In the 1930s it looked very possible that the Soviets would invade Germany and that a fifth column would help them. The Nazis used that legitimate fear to gain power. Though it wasn’t the only reason they got control it was a major factor – never mentioned in Peikoff’s book by the way. Hitler was rotten without the exaggerations of jewish historians.

What aid and comfort? As far as I can tell Fonda’s actions had no effect whatever. And why spend time on a little brush fire when a firestorm is raging over at McNamara and Johnson? They were the traitors who killed and maimed thousands.

Flea, why do you believe “MadMax” = “Doug Bandler” (the latter an admitted pseudonym)? The MadMax message you linked to says of “racialist / white nationalist movements” that “these racist viewpoints” are “contemptible.” Bandler on the other hand more or less approves of them.

Just up at ARI Watch: Leonard Peikoff on Yaron Brook and Immigration

RNC Suspends Debate Partnership With NBC “... due to the total lack of substance and respect exhibited during Wednesday night’s debate.”

The point is that the characterization “world-famous surgeon” is misleading. What was Selene’s point in quoting an incredible statistic? Carson’s career spanned about 35 years. If he performed surgeries 5 days a week every week of every year except four weeks vacation, that’s 35*(52-4)*5 = 8400 days of surgery. A total of 18000 surgeries would be an average of 18000/8400 = 2.14 surgeries for each of those days. (Probably 5 days a week is an over-estimate, making 2.14 an under-estimate.) Were I a lawyer for the plaintiff in a malpractice suit I would use that as evidence of incompetence. Working such a schedule, no surgeon could be adequately prepared for all of them. Anyway the percentage is irrelevant because the malpractice was extreme, gross. It matters nothing to the victims and their loved ones that the percentage was tiny. If the media went after Carson the way they do Trump they would ask him about it. And ask him about it, and ask him about it, ... Interesting article about the campaign:The Ben Carson Money Machine

World famous for incompetence.

What a hash of words. What reply is possible to “nuanced and jejune”? Brant knows nothing about my personal situation. I think the young men who enlisted after the Pearl Harbor attack in December 1941 were fools, that is, were fooled by a corrupt FDR administration.

Wolf, Are you saying patriotism is love of your government, which might be your rulers? What do you call Snowden, a traitor, a patriot, or what?

Wolf, Back in 1920 in Russia, for example, leaving Russia to the Soviets and trying to make a life somewhere else was the best option for some Russians. It was for Ayn Rand. But can you envision having to make a last stand somewhere?

Addressing WSS’s post ... The West’s passivity in the face of conquest by immigration – such is Hitler revenge. That is Peter Brimelow’s perceptive observation. People became afraid to mention race when race is relevant. Getting details of history correct, such as how many men the Nazis executed (or worked to death, in both cases many Gentiles too though they don’t seem to matter as much) is what historians do. For some of them research is for getting the facts straight. You anti-anti-semites contort your own faces when you write “JOOOOS.” Me, I’m an anti-semite, as I’ve said before – see the above, see ARI Watch. Abe Foxman loves me. Make that Jonathan Greenblatt, special assistant to Barack Obama.

I took patriotism to mean the general affection a person might feel for the area in which he lives. Admittedly it’s hard to define, but anyway the main point is that patriotism is distinct from love of the government of one’s country. Rand said, in the Q&A, that if you stay and fight a dictatorship – which I take to be a patriotic act – then you support that dictatorship. Which isn’t too consistent of Rand.

The leftists have abandoned persuading Americans to be leftists. The new tactic is to import leftists, pushing aside a dwindling percentage of recalcitrant Americans. Fixing immigration (for example per Peter Brimelow of Vdare.com) is a rearguard action. With it we buy time, without it we drop through a trap door.

Nothing a person says from a jailhouse, in a country with little respect for free speech, can be taken at face value. You say what will help get you out. We all know the story of Galileo. As was doubtless clear to everyone but WSS, that little viper, I’m sure the Nazis killed many Jews. How and how many is another question. From random reading, not just Irving, I think the six million claim is much exaggerated. But why worry whether it was 1.5 million or 6? Jews worry because to them the history is religious dogma rather than facts. It’s got to be 6 and nothing less will do. (Oddly enough they never seem to claim more. A bull’s eye the first time.)

And now for WSS: “... there were no barriers to emigrants from Mexico or elsewhere in Latin America (unless they were black) ...” Nope. In my article I simplified the history a bit in the interest of brevity. Before the Act of 1924 there was the Act of 1921, which mandated very limited immigration per quotas based on the census of 1910. But people wanted to roll back the clock even further. The Act of 1924 mandated immigration per the census of 1890. The Act of 1929 made it the census of 1920. In all these Acts, Latin America was excluded from the quotas. Things began to unravel during and after World War II. The Bracero program in 1942 brought in Mexican contract labor, probably anticipating a loss of men sent off to war. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 (which I mention in one of the footnotes) was repealed in 1943 – yet another unfortunate consequence of the U.S. entering the war. The Displaced Persons Act of 1948 brought in half a million war refugees, mostly from Europe. The McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 ended most of the remaining racial restrictions. Still, the overall rate was kept low. Then came the infamous Act of 1965 (effective 1968), as described in the article. “The only really disturbing thing Mark has written on OL concerns his agnostic attitude to the Holocaust.” This thread is about “Ayn Rand on Immigration.” The above is worse than going off on a tangent, it’s more like a secant or a perpendicular. However ... I didn’t say I was agnostic about the Nazis killing a lot of Jews. It’s the “six million in gas chambers” that’s questionable – both the number and the method, not that the method matters a heck of a lot to the victims. David Irving, whom the placidly venomous William Scott Scherk mentions, now claims to have a paper trail of Nazi documents showing that they killed from 1.5 to 2 million Jews by machine guns, into open pits where they were buried in mass graves. He claims there were no systematic gas chambers, and that the 6 million figure is an exaggeration. He also claims that the machine gun mass murder was not ordered by Hitler, that Himmler kept Hitler in the dark about it. (About the last I’d say: it’s interesting but keep in mind even if true it doesn’t excuse Hitler from setting up the conditions for the mass murder. Irving doesn’t say it does, but some people might use it that way.) As I said, I don’t know enough to evaluate this. Historical research and discussion has been made politically incorrect in the U.S. and England, and criminalized in Europe. Personally I am annoyed at having been fed those stupid soap & lampshade atrocity stories when I was a kid. Even mainstream historians don’t believe that baloney anymore. I think Irving is a highly intelligent man who has been mistreated by intellectuals and the law. Certain Jewish groups literally worship their holocaust, it is sacred to them, they sacralize history so that it is no longer a real event open to research and investigation. To question it is blasphemy. Most people here probably know about Irving being jailed in Austria for the crime of “holocaust denial.” That’s what I find really disturbing. (Comment from ARI: Nada.) The sentence was three years, in a very small cell, of which he served one year and one month. I don’t have any more to say about it. If WSS wants to talk about it further he should start another thread.

Wolf, I understand what you mean about patience. The article is “for the record” – it had to be written if I want to talk about immigration on a website devoted to the Ayn Rand Institute. I'd hoped people would get the meaning of that word patriotism, as you did. [ADDED: See however Wolf's post below.]

New on ARI Watch: Ayn Rand on Immigration This is part 1. There will a part 2 called something like “What is a Nation” that will be more deductive than journalistic.

My emphasis on Peter’s “sold.” In fact Edward Snowden did not sell his NSA revelations. Now he’s a man without a country. The reason he’s in Russia is that Julian Assange rightly thought it was safer for him than the alternatives, e.g. South America where it would have been easy for the U.S. to kidnap or murder him.