1. Craig Biddle and his Objectivist Standard Institute (“OSI”) filed a lawsuit against multi-millionaire Objectivist donor Carl Barney and his related Objectivist organizations. According to the lawsuit, Barney provided Biddle and the OSI several million dollars (essentially as a gift) to spread Objectivism. However, Biddle and Barney’s personal relationship broke down, and Barney then impermissibly tried to place restrictions on the funds. Barney has counterclaimed, alleging that Biddle has lied to and defrauded him for at least a decade. Not only that, but Biddle allegedly admitted to Barney’s face that he was never sincere. It’s hard to draw conclusions from initial legal pleadings, but it looks like Barney has a huge case of buyer’s remorse.
2. The Ayn Rand Institute continues its anti-Trump and anti-ICE bent. In fact, it seems to be the main interest of the ARI and its writers. For example, the six most recent New Ideal articles are the Supreme Court’s tariff decision (a blow against Trump’s “authoritarianism”), Ayn Rand’s life as an immigrant (two articles), “ICE tyranny,” Trump and political violence, and “ICE and the Rule of Men.” ARI associated writers are even harsher with comparisons of Trump to Hitler and ICE to the Nazis. Rand of course didn’t opine on Trump and never published anything on immigration (although her one public comment seems supportive of large-scale immigration). As I’ve said before, to some extent the ARI’s commenting on Trump and issues such as immigration is inevitable. An Ayn Rand Institute that comments only on her philosophy and political and cultural topics Rand opined upon wouldn’t be particularly interesting. On the other hand, why doesn’t the ARI ever comment on transgenderism? One could make a reasonable conclusion of what Rand would have thought about transgenderism given her attitude toward homosexuality and male/female roles (which unlike immigration made it into print). And even on immigration one could surmise that Rand would support a restrictive (even group based) immigration policy given her views on certain cultures (which borders on the racist).*
* Likewise, in Ayn Rand Answers (if you can trust Robert Mayhew’s editing), Rand said Arabs were practically “savages” and “nomads” and Palestinians had lost all their rights.
-Neil Parille
No comments:
Post a Comment