I know you don't. There are still remnants who do, including some infecting this forum.

Some Leonard Peikoff quotes from Luther:

"The threat of force, according to this view, is the factor which gives potency to idealism; to renounce that threat is to renounce morality, by rendering it ineffective in man's existence. 'He who will not hear God's word when it is spoken with kindness,' summarizes Luther, 'must listen to the headsman when he comes with his axe.'"
-- in "Altruism, Pragmatism And Brutality", ARL VII-6, Dec 18, 1972.


The one you remembered: "Martin Luther (1483-1546)—the greatest single influence on the development of German religion, and one of the foremost heroes of the Nazis. Luther is intensely pro-German and rabidly anti-Semitic ('If I had to baptise a Jew, I would take him to the bridge of the Elbe, hang a stone round his neck and push him over with the words "I baptise thee in the name of Abraham" ' — 'The Jews deserve to be hanged on gallows seven times higher than ordinary thieves").

"He formally enlists God on the side of the state. Governments, he holds, are creations of the divine power, and the mass of wicked men—stained by Original Sin—must therefore bear unprotestingly whatever the government chooses to do. Unconditional obedience to the ruler's edicts is a Christian virtue, evidence of fidelity to God...

'In like manner must we endure the authority of the prince. If he misuse or abuse his authority, we are not to entertain a grudge, seek revenge or punishment. Obedience is to be rendered for God's sake, for the ruler is God's representative. However they may tax or exact, we must obey and endure patiently' "
-- in "Nazi Politics", The Objectivist, May 1969.


"Martin Luther (1483-1546)
'Cursed and condemned is every kind of life lived and sought for selfish profit and good; cursed are all works not done in love. But they are done in love when they are directed wholeheartedly, not toward selfish pleasure, profit, honor, and welfare but toward the profit, honor, and welfare of others.' Cf. What Luther Says; An Anthology, ed. E. M. Plass (3 vols., St. Louis, Concordia, 1959), lii, 1282."
-- in From The Special "Horror File", The Objectivist, Aug 1971.

As an intellectual leader Martin Luther led some of the worst standards of his times.

Please take your non-responsive, angry, repetitious name-calling somewhere else. It does not belong here. We are not "idiots" and "fools" for rejecting emotional conspiracy mongering.

Ok exchange idiots for fools.
“Fools who don’t see the obviously orchestrated attack and destruction of our education system and the constitution . They are a big part of the
problem.”

Yes.
He was the major player in breaking the RC monopoly. But,
"The enemy of my enemy ... "
Well both can be my enemies at the same time.
Luther was a nasty piece of work even by the standards of those times.

Most of us here know how the change in philosophical premises has been destroying both education and constitutional limited government. Those of us, including Ayn Rand, who have rejected the notion that this is caused by an "obviously orchestrated attack" by a secret conspiracy are not "fools" and not "a big part of the problem".

Fools who don’t see the obviously orchestrated attack and destruction of our education system and the constitution . They are a big part of the
problem.

Most people have better sense than to swallow sensationalist conspiracy theories and to gullibley believe everything they read by someone 'making a case' while ignoring all context. Most people ignored the conspiracy tracts put out by the John Birch Society, too. Contrary to Dobrien "Trustees of the mega Rich Families Foundations" are not "The problem over the last 100 years".

Wealthy foundations have played a significant role in the general decline into statism as one of the means. The general decline is philosophical and not due to a "conspiratorial "plan" to "destroy America's rugged individualism" and was not "initiated" by conspirators at at "Jekyll Island."

But such conspiracy theories always have their fringe adherents clinging emotionally like a religion.

Oh, I am not such a fan of Martin Luther. He was viciously anti-Semitic, for one thing. I believe
he also sided with the tyrants in the case of a peasants' revolt. "However they may tax or exact, we must endure patiently." (I read that quote, which I quoted from memory, in an article by Peikoff in The Objectivist.)







s

Yup like Ewe.

Oh that’s, right . I can use the ignore button provided by this forum.

It's called humorous sarcasm and one has to have a sense of it to understand it. Perhaps if you read the book you'll understand the gist.

Your point with regard to removal of bad law is well taken. My point is that we have way too many easily passed non-sensical laws that go into the Florida Constitution, like protection of pregnant pigs.

Sorry, the password is brenner, not Brenner. I didn't notice that Galt's Gulch mis-autocorrected what I typed.

"The requested URL /~jbrenner/nanotechminorprogramhistorywithaudio4.pptx was not found on this server."

When you post a public comment here it is subject to response. This is not a matter of "leaving you alone". If you have no interest then don't respond, but you may not make your posts immune from discussion by declaring responses to be an "irritant".

This is a forum for Ayn Rand's philosophy of reason and individualism. Ayn Rand was a serious intellect who dealt with ideas and their consequences in action, not a conspiracy monger. She did not angrily personalize every issue, reducing discussion to personal attacks and accusations of evil men conspiring to control the fate of the world, then demanding that any serious response be repressed as an irrelevant personal irritant.

If you cannot engage in civilized serious discussion here without such constant angry personalizing then you have no understanding of the purpose of this forum.

Quit being such a irritant.Leave me alone.. I have zero interest in you.

There is no factual evidence that the course of history is determined by a secret conspiracy and that ideas don't matter. That there are sometimes conspiracies intending to violate someone's rights and that people collaborate for bad ends do not mean the course of the world is run by whatever conspiracy theories someone imagines with overwhelming power. Rejecting anti-intellectual conspiracy mongering is not "closed minded Dismissal of factual evidence".

You can believe whatever you want but your intended profanity and sneering insults do not belong on this forum.

The "common Joes" in Atlas Shrugged, such as Edie Willers and many others - some of Ayn Rand's favorite characters, realized both that they should be grateful to the most innovative and productive and that John Galt's philosophy justified their own productivity and pursuit of happiness at any level of ability. Contrary to Blarman's sneering resentment, Ayn Rand did not look down on "common Joes". As she once put it, "There are no little people in America". (Today there are, but not because of limited innate ability.)

By plunging into the middle with an unrealistic political proposal without regard to the necessity of broad acceptance of required intellectual foundations you might as well wish for no bad legislation at all in the name of another "proposal".

It's also a form of Directive 10-289: by proposing freezing politics in place with 90% required to change it you rule out the possibility of improvement by legislation repealing existing powers. Not only will a 90% requirement not be implemented, 50%, let alone 90%, will not vote to remove the bad laws.

What do the religious concepts of 'heresy' and 'pure' have to do with defending values against snide 'irreverent' attacks on them?

I really don’t give a ship about your closed minded
Dismissal of factual evidence. You have no idea of what you dismiss.

No blog, although I used to have a mailing list for property rights and wrote articles for a national newsletter. Also no other current forums since the best one I used to post to closed down and almost everything else moved to the likes of facebook. This forum, after all the work that went into it after the AS movies, is increasingly dubious even for the minority of worthwhile posters/readers.

How can you be reached? If you post an email address be prepared to delete it soon after because spammers will pick it up.

Yes, there's a lot that can't be fundamentally "reformed" because the premises are wrong, like the entrenched public school system. Ayn Rand also supported breaking that monopoly, beginning with spreading school choice as very important.

But Martin Luther is a bad example of any kind of 'reform', especially since some religious conservatives are already promoting him as akin to the Declaration of Independence, which he most certainly is not. Luther maintained the same faith in sacred text mentality and in some ways was much worse than the Catholics -- he was more rabidly anti-reason: He openly attacked Aristotle for his logic, and Aquinas for being too logical despite his faith. He was also a tyrant and advocate of tyranny as bad as the worst Catholics of the time. He had an unintended good consequence of helping to break the power of the Church in general out of all the infighting, but was no reformer of the faith and force and did not break with that to start something new.

This is an anti-intellectual conspiracy theory of history that Ayn Rand rejected as the "evil man" theory of history in place of ideas. Without the unchallenged spread of the ideas of the counter Enlightenment, "mega rich foundations" would not have had the ends to which to apply their competing means.

There have been unlimited ways in which bad ideas have been spread and implemented. It wasn't directed by a secret conspiracy. It does not come down to a "Creature From Jekyll Island".