Christopher Hitchens was a genius. As I said recently on my blog, I never understood before why so many of my Objectivist friends liked him. I am now into my fourth, fifth, and sixth books: No One Left to Lie To (about Bill Clinton); god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything; and Arguably (an anthology of essays). I have read Mortality (almost twice), The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice. I started Hitch-22, but only read selected portions; I found it too self-indulgent. The first book I read was his biography of Thomas Paine. I only started that. I know Paine's life from "Citizen Tom Paine" by Howard Fast (also a Marxist) and in the first ten pages, Hitchen's opinions were unsparkling.

After I returned his "Rights of Man" to the library. A conservative friend of mine - not a libertarian; not an Objectivist - said that when he died she felt that the universe cheated her. I decided to find out why. Hitchens has a lot to offer. Ayn Rand said that a woman should not want to be President of the United States because being the chief executive of the greatest nation in history would leave her without a man to look up to. Even oceans have shallows.

How impressive… not! Talk about oversimplification. Mr. Hitchens is like so many who believe there is only one sense of the word selfish, that it is all about pure greed. The selfishness objectivism is concerned with is the desire to improve ones lot in life, the benefits society derives from this desire, and the right to the fruits of your own labor, to retain your due. It is never about taking more than one has earned, but unabashedly declaring that what is due through mutual exchange of value is nothing to be ashamed of.

Regards,
O.A.

I think it's very telling that if you look at the "related links" section at the bottom of the video How Not to Do a Presentation shows up.