America D'Souza's movie
I saw America after my Atlas Shrugged book club meeting today. It was excellent with a lot of information to help refute many of the common lies being told and taught these days. It was a 4pm movie, so there were about 30 people in the theater, non under the age of at least 50. After the movie there was dead silence and no one even moved. I started clapping and everyone joined in. They seemed relieved to be lead. I was disappointed that I didn't see the ASIII trailer on the 50' screen, although they have several postits in the ladies room now.
One short reason is I have five (5) boards in progress, and this is a way to relax similar to TV or Facebook for some people. The other short reason is Fountainhead changed my life in some ways, and AS was close behind.
I had heard about how horrible Rand was since college. In '11 or '12 I was at a UU (that's "church" for atheists with children) event on healthcare. I said something about the good and bad of PPACA, and someone basically said, "but we're _for_ the 'ACA'". The congregation is technically a church and not allowed to have a political position. Even if it weren't, I reject the idea of an orthodoxy. So do the Seven Principles of UU. It wasn't a very UU attitude. I can't recall whether it was that night or an earlier event where someone condemned Rand. I decided to read it. I picked the first one I saw at the library, which by chance was Fountainhead. I expected to hate it. I loved it so much that it's not hyperbolic to say it changed my life, mainly for painting archetypal villains that many of us have elements of at some points, elements that are truly evil. So I read AS. I eventually left that congregation, although I would _never_ judge all 2000 families by a few anti-Rand quips I heard. At the new UU congregation (my town has three of them), I met people who were more open to Rand, including one strong fan.
This website does not always follow my interpretation of the two books I've read. I just checked the top 25 Hot posts. 11 of them are supportive of my view of Ayn Rand, 9 say things that directly oppose my view of Rand, and 5 are interesting tidpids unrelated to Rand's philosophy. That's 36% directly opposing my interpretation. (It's a free country and actually a good thing to challenge my views.) But maybe I should not relax on this website. Maybe one interpretation of Rand is it's all politics, and we just pick a side and shoehorn it hamfistedly into a philosophy that IMHO stands for reason, against politics, and against making up your mind based on a group orthodoxy. In this case you start with two package options of views on all issues. Then you start looking for any evidence to support your assertion. Instead of focusing on the process of critical thinking, it's just hooray of any of the idea on the list and for any attempt to belittle and condemn people, even people you've never met, who disagree. Any failures in life where you didn't accomplish what you set out to aren't opportunities to grow but rather things to blame on some supposed political battle, supposedly like the one in AS where evil forces really were kidnapping and torturing people to try to force them to produce.
This is not about the Republican view. Some Democrats do an amazing job explaining how President Bush is the source of their problems and they can't go out and find productive work b/c of CEOs, right-to-work laws, foreign trade, and general greed/selfishness. I loved the Rand view condemning this. Just go do your own thing, it says, and don't focus at all on this. Find the things you really like in this life. Don't be Gail Wynand driving through upstate NY looking at the leaves changing and still repeating "I don't run things? I f#(&ing do. I guess I'm happy now. I wonder how many more autumns I will see. Who cares? My boat's named 'I do', so there!" Don't be Peter Keating, mindlessly living for a reaction, any reaction, out of other people. Don't be Jim Tagart and do nothing but politics and surround yourself with people, even marry one, who you hope will stroke your ego.
But if AS is about politics, a packaged orthodoxy, then I'm just a pain in the neck. I wouldn't want a world where everyone agrees with me. I'm free do whatever I want, but I don't want to be a gadfly; it's not my interest. I'd rather figure things out, solve problems, and ideally sometimes do it in trades in which both parties are thrilled, the happy and rare cases when someone's amazed at what a board can do and I'm amazed they're paying me to play as I did with those 50-in1 electronics projects kit.
You... I love you.
Either the Confederacy had a right to secede, or we are all still British subjects and the DoI is meaningless.
Oh, yeah, and he was responsible for the unnecessary deaths of over half a million men in arms and countless more civilians. There's that, too.
The war you refer to as the War of Northern Aggression would properly be called "The Confederate War" per our (at least recent) habit of naming wars after our antagonists (Korean War, Vietnam War, Iraq War...)
There's a book I got a long, long time ago called, "The South Was Right". I found it in an old filing box as I was digging around looking for 4 gig or less IDE hard drives. I need to reread it.
(The hard drive on my MS-DOS desktop went south while in storage, and I need a replacement drive plus re-install of everything that was on there... sigh)
Aside from being manifestly biased
(So what else did I expect from this source?)
I was struck by the author's citation of 90% of the methods the Media uses to get across it's messages, he hates it when someone from the Right uses the Left's methods.
How strange that what's good for the Goose is *not* good for the Gander. :)
I've had great joy using the Saul Alisky's "Rules for Radicals" to undermine some Lefty's screwy world view.
If you're unacquainted with the rules/methods, have a look:
Summary Rules:
http://www.bestofbeck.com/wp/activism/sa...
Some Analysis:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_for_...
The Book itself (PDF download link)
http://callidorabeach.wordpress.com/2013...
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