Objectivism is anything but a cult. It is a philosophy of individuals who think their life is their own. There is no possible way for a philosophy that holds that premise as the highest moral value to be cultish in any definition of the term.

Objectivism is a philosophy constructed by Ayn Rand, a Russian-born writer who imigrated to America to escape Communism. The philosophy is extremely detailed, but with some focus most people can understand it, mainly because it is a philosophy grounded in reality. An overview of the philosophy does not quite do it justice, however I think an overview is necessary to attract individuals who are active thinkers but have been unable to define their life and their love of it completely. The best summary of Objectivism that I have found is Galt’s Speech from Atlas Shrugged. I suggest anyone who reads this note to take some time and have a listen. After that pick up a copy of Atlas Shrugged, because it is a story that contains characters that embody the ideals of Objectivism.

Now, here’s my summary. Again, this does not do Objectivism justice, but I want to summarize the ideals to peak the interest of those who have not been introduced to or have a gross misunderstanding of the philosophy of Objectivism.

Metaphysics/Epistemology: Objectivism holds that reality is reality. This means that everything you observe with your senses is real, and that your senses are the only tools you have (and can trust) to observe and extract ideas from reality. Your mind is how you process your sensory data and you can either focus your mind and think or you can choose to loose focus and degrade your mind.

Ethics/Morality: Morality is derived from rational self interest (refereed to as selfishness by Objectivists). The selfish desire to own your own life and live as happily as possible is the basis of morality, not anything mystical or unexplainable. This means that you live your life for yourself, NEVER initiate force, protect yourself with force only if force is initiated upon you and never sacrifice your higher values for lesser ones. Love is an expression of shared values. You love someone because they share your values, not because of anything unexplainable or mystical.

Politics/Economy: The government exists to protect individuals rights, and that is it. They are only in charge of a standing army, police and court system. They do not have the right to create social systems, no right to force taxation and no right to regulate business. The ideal economy is free trade among individuals (Capitalism), and the government only steps in if individual rights have been violated, either through the breaking of a contract or the initiation of force. Individuals are completely responsible for their own actions and society is never blamed. The government is funded through voluntary taxation, with individuals gladly pay for protection of their rights.

Art/Esthetics: Value judgments can be expressed through art. Art is not just a random splatter of paint on a canvas, art is our highest values expressed through visuals.

Feel free to ask me questions about Objectivism by replying to this post. If you already have a set philosophy please keep your comments to yourself because I want to keep this post open to those who do not have a set philosophy yet.  If you want to expose these same people to your philosophy, do it on your own blog. Also, any Objectivists who read this post, feel free to correct me or request that I add any essential information that I left out. What am I thinking! I don’t even have to ask, I can always rely on Objectivists to correct me (and that’s a good thing).

I’ve been thinking a lot of what makes me angry and sad about the massacre at Virginia Tech. Now I know that it is the idea that the students and teachers in the classroom were not legally allowed to protect themselves against a deranged being. The people who were in danger today only had a two choices: flee or die. If they had only had the third choice, the choice and right to protect themselves, the lives lost today would not be so high. I do not understand why people are crying for more gun laws, when this nut job would have had these guns no matter what. Do you think an immoral creature like himself would have had a problem obtaining guns illegally?

I want more people armed, not less. You know why I think more people with guns would be better than less? It is my trust that more people in this country are good than bad, and more people with guns would mean more good people with guns. Evil people will have guns whether we want them to or not, so we deserve every right to match their ability to kill so at least we have a fighting chance against true evil. I think those who oppose guns are either a) misguided in their anger and sadness or b) mistrusting of the individuals in this country. The latter ones are disgusting excuses for humans.

A handgun has now been bumped to the top of my major purchases list. It is time for me to even the playing field as much as legally possible. I want my fighting chance at protecting my most precious value: my life.

It isn’t feasible to insure that we live in a world without people like that. The only thing that’s feasible is people being allowed to protect themselves. -Cappy

Related Links:

• Wiki of the Killer
• “I am a firm believer that if Virginia tech students were allowed to conceal carry this situation could have ended sooner.” - His blog

I noticed one of the images on this site was getting a ton of hits, so I tracked it down to this blog.  I changed the name of the image on this server, and uploaded a new image just for him. Go check it out and see if you can spot the image he tried to hotlink.

Here’s a screen shot just in case he takes it down:

(Image p.s. says: I also steal bandwidth which reflects my communist credo)

Socialism is a system that depends on all individuals agreeing to work towards the common good of its community. This system is only possible if everyone cooperates willingly. Unfortunately for you there are individuals, like me, who disagree to work towards the good of the community. I wish to work to further my own selfish desires.

There are only a couple of options for socialism to work. One is to form a small commune of individuals who agree with socialism, and all work towards the good of one another without interfering with the rest of society. The other option is to create a government system that forces individuals to comply with your philosophy.

Any system, such as this, would have to force every individual to work for the good of everyone else. It is your individual choice if you wish to live your life for others, this is a right that is only taken away by force.

Those of you who hold socialism as your own personal credo, you are not a concern. But those of you who use the government to force your ideals on others, listen well. We will not let you rob and steal without exposing your ideology for what it really is: slavery.

(I originally posted this on a Facebook group dedicated to socialism. It generated a huge response from capitalists and socialists. I am reposting it here because I think it is a good argument and deserves its own post. This post may be reproduced at will and without permission, on the condition that a) any partial reproductions make it known that it is only partial, and b) websites where it is uploaded provide a conveniently-placed link to this posting, and other formats make the URL available.)

I’m a quarter of a century old.

Get it while it’s hot *WARNING: Nudity, Language*

I don’t know why my creative brain strikes me at 1:30 in the morning, but here I am writing furiously on multiple notepads.  Recently I have been unable to keep up with my to-do list and it has been demotivating.  Every day my list grows larger and larger with a sense of no progress, despite me continuing to make money and landing jobs.  Spending time actually planning my business has been put on the back burner.  Tonight I realized that I am hitting another plateau of stagnancy with my business and it is time to bring planning my business to the front burner and begin to generate some new ideas.

Tonight, or this morning, I am on a random brainstorming trip and just keep writing down ideas as they come into my head.  None of them are ground breaking, but they still excite me at the possibilities of running into a great idea.  I can see my future goals and some intermediate steps to acheive them but all the details seem so numerous that I am becoming overwhelmed.  I understand what it means to have a burning mind, because mine literally feels like it is burning red hot at this moment.

I am writing this post to keep me motivated tomorrow to continue working on these ideas.  It seems like a lot of these ideas sit stagnant on my notebooks after I wake up exhausted in the morning, so maybe I’ll read this post and be inspired by the passion I had so early this morning.