Objectivists against Ron Paul
December 23, 2007 – 11:35 am by JohnStephan Kinsella has an excellent refutation of the Objectivist disapproval of Ron Paul as candidate for president—and, indeed, his entire philosophy in general. Kinsella says,
It is clear that the primary objection of Objectivists to Paul is his foreign policy views and non-interventionism. The other criticisms do not seem to be very coherent or really what bugs the Randians. …
[G]ive me Paul’s “non-interventionism” anyday over Randian “nuke ‘em all” warmongering: on this, see the Ayn Rand Institute editorial War, Nuclear Weapons and “Innocents” (9/28/01) (see also Justin Raimondo on this: “Of course, Schwartz and his crowd, notably Rand’s “intellectual heir” Leonard Peikoff, have called for a nuclear first strike against the entire Arab world”); also Lynne Cheney’s Circles Call for Mass Murder (“Dr. Yaron Brook, the executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute … warned that “Islamic totalitarian states pose a severe threat to the security of the United States,” adding that a way to defeat these regimes “is to kill up to hundreds of thousands of their supporters.” This, he said, would “shrink popular support for extremist ideas to a small minority of the population,” instead of the 40% which he claims supports such regimes now”); Peikoff on nukes; Barbara Branden’s The Lepers of Objectivism; Yaron Brook and the ARI; Objectivism Online topic “Can You List Five Reasons We Should NOT nuke Tehran?”; ARI Attacks ‘Just War’ Theory, Advocates Nuclear Option.
Wow, he is a well-researched and organized debunker of Objectivism. I can’t help but wonder: Why did he post this (and several other rather long posts) on the LRC blag and not publish it as a column at LRC?
