Sep 6, 2022 | Philosophy
Writes philosopher Ben Bayer, author of Why the Right to Abortion Is Sacrosanct, in his op-ed “If you value personal responsibility, rethink abortion“:
I agree that one should be willing to live with the consequences of one’s actions. Responsible sex, for instance, means pursuing this value with an eye to one’s health and self-esteem. It means using contraception and protection, and treating sex as a meaningful experience with someone else who feels the same way.
But if opponents of abortion really care about responsibility, why aren’t they outraged by the fact that fifteen of the new state abortion bans, the Texan ban included, contain no exceptions for rape or incest? Victims of rape and incest — like the 10-year-old girl in Ohio who had to flee to Indiana for an abortion — have not been irresponsible. Why don’t the supporters of “responsibility” denounce any ban without rape and incest exceptions?
The answer is that anti-abortion rhetoric about ‘responsibility’ is a cover for attacking the American right to the pursuit of happiness:
Serious abortion opponents think that choosing the joy of sex for its own sake is morally suspect and so “irresponsible.” They believe sex has only one “natural” purpose: reproduction. The only acceptable alternative is celibacy. In their view our “responsibility” is to pursue only those ends assigned to us by some higher power. This is inconsistent with the idea that we should pursue the goals and consequences we are willing to accept in our pursuit of happiness.
Required reading.
Jun 23, 2022 | Ayn Rand & Objectivism
Ayn Rand on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,” October 1967.
May 25, 2022 | Ayn Rand & Objectivism
Nikos Sotirakopoulos author of examines how “From politics to the ‘culture wars,’ tribalism has added to the toxicity of the public sphere. But there is one other field where tribalism, i.e., the viewing of the world through the prism of a group, can be even more insidious: in one’s own thinking. Nikos will talk about how tribalism can poison our mind, and discuss what the remedy is.”
Given at ARC Europe 2022.
Mar 4, 2022 | Philosophy
From Tennis Now:
Reigning Roland Garros champion Djokovic will be permitted to defend his crown in May after the French government announced it will end mandatory masking indoors and COVID-19 vaccination pass requirements on March 14th.
That ruling means the unvaccinated Djokovic, who was booted from Australia and unable to defend his Melbourne crown, can play the clay-court major starting May 22nd and the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters set for April 10-17th provided governmental protocol stands.
French Prime Minister Jean Castrex announced vaccine passports will no longer be required to enter venues or arenas as of March 14th.
The COVID-negative Djokovic was deported from Australia for being an “icon” for body autonomy (“anti-vaccination sentiment”) by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison — who as I write this has tested COVID positive “but will continue his official duties while isolating.”
Dec 5, 2021 | Ayn Rand & Objectivism
Ayn Rand scholar and professor of literature, Shoshana Milgram, writes on “‘Capitalism’: When and How Ayn Rand Embraced the Term (Pt. 1)” (2021 Dec 1, New Ideal):
Capitalism, wrote Ayn Rand, is “the only system geared to the life of a rational being.” She was an outspoken, enthusiastic, uncompromising advocate of capitalism, a self-described “radical for capitalism.” Her 1957 best seller, the novel Atlas Shrugged, celebrates production and business. She is known for eloquent articles on the topic (e.g., “America’s Persecuted Minority: Big Business”), many of them collected in the 1966 volume Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.
But at what age did she first come to view business itself positively? When did she recognize free enterprise as not only an efficient economic system, but as the only moral political system? When did she begin to make salient use of the term “capitalism” and think of it as naming her political ideal? The present article is a biographical answer. I begin with her youth, continue through her university education and her early Russian publications, cross the Atlantic with her to the United States, follow her reading and writing about individualism in politics, and examine the advocacy in her private and public writing of the principles of free enterprise — and the appearance there of the word “capitalism.”
Read the rest.
