[ExI] Attacking Rand

[Dan]

--- On Tue, 6/9/09, Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 8,
> 2009 at 11:56 PM, Jeff Davis <jrd1415 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>> Read Rand on the toilet and then put the paper to more
>> appropriate use. 
>
> While I remain way far from anything that could be
> characterised as "Randism", it remains in fact
> quite dubious that she would have condoned many of the
> policies adopted by the US governments in recent times,
> including at an international level.

Hard to say what Rand would have condoned or argue that because she would have condoned something that that means the "appropriate use" of her works is as toilet paper.

That said, I believe she would have, sadly, agreed with "American exceptionalism."  Even so, I'm not sure how she'd have applied her view of that today.  For instance, she believed the US should have never gotten into Vietman -- and wrote so in the late 1960s.*

> After all, couldn't a few of them also be read as an
> effort to enforce mediocrity on unwilling countries with the
> assistance of a conformist world? :-)

Perhaps.  I also don't see why some of Chomsky's foreign policy insights can't be combined with Rand's.  Maybe not in Jeff Davis's mind, but many libertarians** seem to have no problem accepting insights from both thinkers.

Regards,

Dan

*  See the passages quoted in Russell Madden "Rand on War" at:

http://home.earthlink.net/~rdmadden/webdocs/Rand_on_War.html

and Chris Sciabarra's "Understanding the Global Crisis: Reclaiming Rand’s Radical Legacy" at:

http://rebirthofreason.com/Articles/Sciabarra/Understanding_the_Global_Crisis__Reclaiming_Rands_Radical_Legacy.shtml

**  Of course, I mean true libertarians -- not the pro-war ones.  :)