Audiobooks and Objectivism

For the last few weeks I have been spending much of my time listening to audiobooks. I had forgotten how much I love them! They are perfect for listening to on the way to work and back, and you can even listen to them at work. If you can multi-task, then an audiobook allows you to maximize your time and stay entertained even while doing mundane tasks.

Lately I have been listening to The Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind. It is a series of fantasy novels that explore the philosophy of Objectivism. I read Atlas Shrugged ten years ago so the political philosophy wasn't new to me. While Goodkind manages to plagiarize the ideas of many of his contemporaries in the fantasy genre, the political angle of the series gave me many opportunities to examine the dangers of good intentions, and I found myself consuming the books one after another.

The series is so popular that Sam Raimi (Spiderman, The Evil Dead, Hercules etc) is bringing it to television this fall.

My favorite book was Faith of the Fallen, which is probably the most obviously objectivist book of the series. It was also the most original. I didn't notice a single idea that was "borrowed" from Robert Jordan (from whom he borrowed the most in previous books). In the book, Richard (the hero of the series) is captured and forced to live as a commoner in a socialist (in the Stalinist sense) state. He learns first hand about the state of slavery that exists when men are forced to live for the benefit of those "in need", and how bureaucracy stifles the human spirit and elevates the worst characteristics in humanity. The government creates sociopathy in the name of fighting it. This probably appealed to me because of my anti-statist leanings.

While the objectivist hero is self-reliant and abhors bureaucracy cloaked in good-intentions, they are also noble and extremely loyal, willing to sacrifice for those they love. The stories praise the willing sacrifice made by free men, as they trample the notion that we are best served by sacrificing our independence in the name of vague ideas about the common good.

Democrats should be ashamed!

Glenn Greenwald sums up the great victories accomplished by the Democratic party since taking over the House and Senate in 2006. It sickens me to think that these people were elected to change this country's course, and they have done nothing but keep it going in the wrong direction.

Here is the list:

• Repeatedly funded -- at the White House's insistence -- the Iraq War without conditions;
• Defeated -- at the White House's insistence -- Jim Webb's bill to increase the intervals between deployments for U.S. troops;
• Defeated -- at the White House's insistence -- a bill to restore habeas corpus, which had been abolished by the Military Commissions Act, enacted before the 2006 election with substantial Democratic and virtually unanimous GOP support;
• Enacted -- at the White House's insistence and with substantial Democratic and virtually unanimous Republican support
-- the so-called Protect America Act, vesting the President with extreme new warrantless eavesdropping powers;
• Overwhelmingly approved the Senate's Kyl-Lieberman Resolution, to declare parts of the Iranian Government a "terrorist organization," an extremely belligerent resolution modeled after those which made "regime change" the official U.S. Government position towards Iraq;

• Deleted from a pending bill -- at the direction of the House Democratic leadership and at the insistence of the White House -- a provision merely to require Congressional approval before the Bush administration can attack Iran;
• Overwhelmingly enacted -- at the White House's insistence, and with substantial Democratic and virtually unanimous GOP support -- the "FISA Amendments Act of 2008," to vest the President with broad new warrantless eavesdropping powers and to immunize lawbreaking telecoms, all but putting an end to any chance for a real investigation and judicial adjudication of the Bush administration's illegal NSA spying program;
• Confirmed, with the indispensable support of two key Democratic Senators, Bush's nominee for Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, despite his support for radical Bush theories of executive power and his refusal to oppose torture;
• Stood by passively and impotently while Bush officials flagrantly ignored their Subpoenas and refused to comply with their investigations.

Why do we vote for these liars??

If you've used a phone in the last 5 years...

Betrayed by Obama, but the ACLU offers hope

Today Americans hoping for change were betrayed by the candidate we thought was different. Barack Obama voted along with the Republicans to pass legislation that legalizes the warrantless eavesdropping done by the Bush administration and the major telecoms. It also prevents lawsuits against the companies that betrayed their customer's privacy. Obama's position on this legislation is a huge disappointment because it demonstrates that he shares the same outlook on civil liberties as the Bush administration.

This is not some fringe issue either. If the government can spy on us without warrants, then no one can stand up to that government without living under a magnifying glass, with every action scrutinized. We all break the law, but only those that are inconvenient to the powerful will be held accountable, while the well connected will break the law with impunity and hold onto positions of power. Want an example? Eliot Spitzer. He was a thorn in the side of the ruling elite, so they used the Patriot Act's expanded police powers to spy on him, and then used illegally gathered (according to the 4th amendment) information to discredit and disgrace him.

The ACLU has vowed to fight on and will challenge the new law in court as it is in clear violation of the 4th amendment.

"This fight is not over. We intend to challenge this bill as soon as President Bush signs it into law," said Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU National Security Project. "The bill allows the warrantless and dragnet surveillance of Americans' international telephone and email communications. It plainly violates the Fourth Amendment."

Read the press release here

If you want change, Obama isn't going to give it to us. Do not send him money. Do not support him. Support groups like the ACLU and the EFF.

An ad every politician should see

Click for PDF

A Declaration For Our Times

http://www.constitutioncampaign.org/ad/ad.pdf


When in the course of human events the government becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established, it is the Right of the People to alter it and demand restoration of those Constitutional Principles that have so long assured their Liberty, Safety, and Happiness.

Therefore, on the anniversary of our Independence, we offer this new declaration for our times.

The history of this president is one of arbitrary usurpations of power, the effect of which is to establish tyranny through false promises of greater security.

He has created a multitude of new programs and sent swarms of petty officers to spy on Americans in a misguided effort to combat foreign terrorism. He has invested these agents with sweeping new powers to monitor our conversations and ransack our personal papers and effects without judicial supervision or any reason to believe – as the Constitution requires -- that a crime has been committed.

He has further claimed the power to disregard legislation that Congress has passed.

He has suspended the laws and treaties against torture, authorized the kidnapping of mere suspects, and transported hundreds of prisoners beyond seas so that no independent judiciary could question the legality of their mistreatment.

He and his supporters in Congress have granted amnesty to the officials who unleashed torture and humiliation upon helpless prisoners, to the disgrace of our nation.

He has denied these prisoners access to attorneys, family, and friends, and has claimed the right to try them before military tribunals specifically designed to disregard the most basic principles of law.

He has imprisoned thousands of lawful immigrants for months without charges, under brutal conditions, until his agents, rather than independent courts, decided that they posed no threat.

He has wrapped his usurpations of power and his deprivations of liberty in thick cloaks of secrecy, thereby showing contempt for the rule of law and the proper functions of Congress, the courts, and the press.

At every stage of these oppressions we have sought redress, but our petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.

We, therefore, resolve to resist these usurpations by all lawful means at our disposal. To this end, we insist that the powers of our national government be shared by all branches of government and not concentrated in one alone. And we call upon Congress, the courts, and the press to reassert their constitutional functions vigorously and restore the promise that is America.

To these ends, we mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.



Sign The Pledge

Pillars of the Earth

I just finished reading Ken Follet's The Pillars of the Earth. Many friends recommended it, and it has seen renewed success because it was promoted by Oprah herself at the end of last year. While I enjoyed it, and went through it almost non-stop, it was not as good as I expected it would be. It would have been better as a shorter book with a condensed time-line, but in its current form it seemed to go on forever. I was also surprised by the copious amount of graphic sex and violence. It almost amused me to think of Oprah reading some of the nearly pornographic scenes depicted in the book. While I am far from prudish about such things, I just didn't expect it in a book so heavily recommended by a mature bunch of readers.

Maybe Oprah will read A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin and recommend it someday. It has all the steamy sex and gratuitous violence along with a better story.