Attribute to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

The last few days I've not read any news. And, you know what? I'm already feeling better!

Here's an interesting historical essay:

How Nationalism and Socialism Arose from the French Revolution
by Dan Sanchez

In 1755, the Portuguese city of Lisbon was struck by a massive, deadly earthquake. As Deirdre McCloskey recently wrote, in the century that followed, three big ideas swept through Europe that would also shake the world. One of those ideas was fantastically fruitful, while the other two proved to be disastrously destructive.

First to sweep through was the bright idea of, in the words of Adam Smith, “allowing every man to pursue his own interest in his own way, upon the liberal plan of equality, liberty, and justice.” In the first half of the 19th century, this idea became known as liberalism.
Read more

Before I stopped reading news&hellip I mean Fake News of course, I had this thought:

Where does United Airlines train employees these days? At the IRS?

Okay, pretty much all news. Sometimes I'm just don't have the strength to deal with What's Happening!

Our Publisher, L. Neil Smith writes:

What A Satisfying Pleasure It Is to read the Guardian's pencil-necked geeky whimpering about Ayn Rand's continuing influence on politics and the market. FWIW, every word of mine you've ever read that you liked was inspired, either by her, or Robert A. Heinlein.
Read “The new age of Ayn Rand: how she won over Trump and Silicon Valley” by Jonathan Freedland.

I read that article (and the links in it to several other articles on Ayn Rand), and found them all in the Fake News box.

What is so funny about the articles is—like most (or all) Collectivists—they complain about her "moral absolutivism" in a tone of moral outrage at anyone daring to have any opinion that differes from his moral opinions. I mean, this, folks, is what happens when our so-called “educational system” fails to teach people how to think, how to tell truth from falsehood, to not love truth for truth's sake.

No, collectivism hates the very idea of “truth” with an all-comsuming passion. So when anyone speaks up saying they have a bit of truth, the collectivist goes “ape-shit” (as they say). It is amusing, of course, but still….

And then there is “US Republican leaders love Ayn Rand’s controversial philosophy—and are increasingly misinterpreting it” by Thu-Huong Ha, which is another funny article, full of brilliant insights (not really) like:

Though philosophers have never taken her seriously, Rand’s controversial “objectivist” ideas have been invoked by generations of conservatives…

Just off the top of my head, three philosophers who do take Rand’s ideas very seriously:

John Hospers—wrote several textbooks used in university philosophy classes, such as An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis [hardback or Kindle].

David Kelley—wrote/co-wrote the most popular undergraduate texbook on logic (or at least it once was the most popular) The Art of Reasoning: An Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking (Fourth Edition) [a $100 paperback! (college textbook you know! Expensive! And that's just to Rent it!) or Kindle ($42 to $75!)] but there is a previous edition, Art of Reasoning with Symbolic Logic which is only $15 in [hardback or about $3 in paperback] No Kindle.

Chris Matthew Sciabarra—his book Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical [Kindle] was published by a university press, even—warning, it’s rather dense and assumes quite a knowlege of philosophy.

And on that note, as the sun sinks slowly in the… er… what direction is that, anyway….