participant-3927, 5:50 AM, February 3
Today is 120-th birthday of Ayn Rand.
“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. it’s yours.”
— Atlas Shrugged
participant-3927, 4:55 PM, February 3
@participant-6456 I saw the newsletter Liberland sent out, and your YouTube video, in which you speak favourably about Trump, as defending free trade and his country. He doesn’t – he is imposing tarrifs. He is the complete opposite of what Frederique Bastiat advocated, and all following free market economists. And, he is a diameteric opposite, politically, from Milei.
I understand that Liberland needs recognitition, and wants to seize any opportunity towards this by accepting invites to events. But by coming to Trump’s inauguration, you express support for Trump and his policies, which is not helping the cause of freedom, and Liberland in particular.
Failure to understand the importance of principles is the reason libertarian projects keep failing. One can’t appease evil.
participant-6060, 5:20 PM, February 3
This is good, thanks.
participant-6060, 5:22 PM, February 3
Yes I will. I only add links when proactively asked by my interviewees.
The idea was to communicate their message in a zk way without having AIs to nessessary scrape this data and use for their benefit
So most interviewees are keeping their identity off the organisation they stand for
The goal with the interview was to unite variety of views and voices and make sure we don’t promote our brands but rather share our ideas
I hope it makes sense
participant-4603, 5:34 PM, February 3
Trump has become a countercultural avatar and a symbol of shaking up the current international order, so folks gravitate toward that and are blindsided by it.
But what is ironic and surprises me is how those who are right of center in the United States not only support him and have historically opposed taxes but are enthusiastically cheerleading for tariffs without seeing the contradiction—especially in the face of large inflationary pressures.
His defenders will tell us that he’s using tariffs as leverage to negotiate better deals for the United States when, instead, it would be great for the United States of America to embrace the kind of universal free trade and non-interventionism that the special administrative region of Hong Kong has had historically.
participant-3927, 5:36 PM, February 3
It’s tribalism of the Right – what one says is not important, what’s more important is supporting the team.
participant-4603, 5:37 PM, February 3
But I understand many people are trying to patronize Trump and are acting as sycophants, hoping that somehow he will embrace their pet cause or issue, so there is a whole lot of realpolitik going on.
That being said, I do happen to think that Donald is doing many things right, though I am not at all a fan of tariffs—unless we’re talking about certain isolated situations where supply chains for national security must be subsidized at home.
And even then, I’m not certain that’s correct because too much gets pushed through under the umbrella of national security.
participant-3927, 5:37 PM, February 3
By the way, Andrew, since we spoke on air, and touched on Jan 6, I have read Liz Cheney’s book, and I am convinced it was all Trump’s doing.
participant-4603, 5:37 PM, February 3
Oh yeah?
participant-3927, 5:38 PM, February 3
Name one thing Trump is doing right.
participant-4603, 5:38 PM, February 3
Pardoned Ross Ulbricht.
participant-3927, 5:41 PM, February 3
It’s wrong actually
participant-3927, 5:41 PM, February 3
Pardoning him is an example of favoritism, which a government cannot do. The law is the same to everyone. If drugs and and free trade is made legal, only then he can be pardoned.
participant-4603, 5:42 PM, February 3
The president has pardon power per the supreme law of the land in the form of the u.s constitution. Otherwise, I do happen to agree with you.
participant-4603, 5:42 PM, February 3
It’s within his right and purview to do so and it seemed to me that Ross’s sentence was excessive.
participant-3927, 5:43 PM, February 3
But you have to see this pardoning in the overall context. He did not pardon him because it was excessive. He pardoned people who have no respect for law and authority of the state. He pardoned many Jan 6 terrorists – those who beat police, etc. And he is consistent – he has no respect for law himself, and in these people, he sees his ideological brothers.
participant-4603, 5:45 PM, February 3
Yes, but if I were going to argue more along your line of reasoning I would also add that he was throwing a bone to some wings of his supporters
participant-4603, 5:46 PM, February 3
Right, I do think that’s exactly correct and he does view some of those as his ideological brethren. You could look at it another way and say at least he is keeping his promises to those people and he is showing loyalty to them.
participant-3927, 5:47 PM, February 3
Exactly. It’s all manipulation. Let me ask you this, if a 2 year old states that 5! is 120, would you conclude that he knows math? Now, extend this example to a man who does something that appears good to you, but he has done it for entirely different reasons. What Trump does, he does for the purpose of manipulation.
participant-3927, 5:49 PM, February 3
Also, an appeal to loyalty is an equivocation. Loyalty to a country is a positive thing, but loyalty to a person is actually anti-reason and is a negative thing.
participant-4603, 5:51 PM, February 3
It shocks me how many anti-state libertarians love him. I get they are so desperate for a hero and a Savior, but it also tells me that some of them are not so principled.
participant-3927, 5:53 PM, February 3
Trump is a foolish old man, who has no clue what he is doing and what he is saying (at best), or is an evil monster at worst. I don’t pay attention to him, but I am not going to stay silent when I disagree, because my silence could be interpreted as acceptance and support.
participant-3927, 6:47 PM, February 3
I don’t know enough about politics to comment on whether Biden made his own decisions, or represented someone behind the scenes. But does it matter? Isn’t it enough to see what’s publicly is done?
participant-3927, 6:48 PM, February 3
I am trying to come up with short definition for Anthemism. I came up with this:
Anthemism is a political ideology inspired by Ayn Rand’s Anthem, focused on founding a new country based on Objectivist principles and governed by laissez-faire capitalism.
participant-3927, 7:13 PM, February 3
I simplified it more:
Anthemism is an Objectivist political ideology, inspired by Ayn Rand’s Anthem, focused on founding a new laissez-faire capitalist state.
participant-3927, 6:14 AM, February 5
Thank you to @participant-7471 and @participant-4603 for engaging with the Twitter channel.
participant-3927, 6:17 AM, February 5
Interesting, Joe Quirk, a prominent advocate for Seasteading, has reacted to my post about Anthemism. I wonder if he visited the website.
participant-3927, 6:18 AM, February 5
participant-4603, 8:52 AM, February 5
I think he has strong Objectivist leanings. When I met him in Prague this past November he spoke more that way than as a libertarian and he seemed to have really enjoyed the presentation from Nikos the Objectivist.
participant-3927, 7:03 PM, February 5
Good news! There has been another initiative by Objectivists to start a new country. It’s framed as a think tank, called Thomas-Paine Institute, with website at thomaspaineinstitute.com. The founders are Kevin Osborne & Alex Bleier. Here’s what Alex writes in HBL (post #56005) about who’s involved:
One of our key goals for setting up the Thomas Paine Institute was to attract high-level thinkers to formulate answers to the challenges of forming a new nation (our preferred name for the new nation is Arete).
A key member of the TPI team is my college friend, Jerry Meyer. Jerry is a retired Professor Emeritus at the University of Mass. His specialty is psychological physiology; he has been studying addiction throughout his career; he wrote a widely used textbook on the effects of drugs on the brain.
participant-4233, 7:03 PM, February 5
Maybe I can help them make a community app
participant-3927, 7:31 PM, February 5
Quote from the essay’s abstract:
In January 1776 a British-born firebrand by the name of Thomas
Paine proclaimed in his pamphlet “Common Sense” that “We have it in our
power to begin the world over again.”
… What conditions existed in 1776 America to convince Thomas Paine
that America had the power to begin the world over again? How did its
constitution drive America’s rise? Why is she now in decline, though still
a great power? Is a permanently free sovereign state even possible today,
or is it too late?
This essay explores these questions and answers “No” to the last. It is
not too late.
participant-3927, 7:33 PM, February 5
The credentials of the authors:
Kevin Osborne holds a PhD in Philosophy from the City University of
New York. Alex Bleier, with degrees in Math, Philosophy, and
Technical Communication has an extensive career in computer
consulting, spanning the gamut from Fortune 500 companies to Silicon
Valley startups and now to the newly formed Thomas Paine Institute.
participant-3927, 8:23 PM, February 5
Harry Binswanger, in the thread discussing the new country idea (which he critiques), gave a working name for it as
New America. The founders of the above initiative, prefer the name
Arete.
participant-3927, 8:25 PM, February 5
In my article on the website on how to get sovereignty, in which I discuss the Cyprus Buffer Zone, I called it
Cypria. At this point the name of the new country is not critical, and will depend on the region where it is to be situated. For writing articles, any working name that makes sense given the context, will do.
participant-3927, 8:27 PM, February 5
I have also considered the name
Pax or Paks or some variant of it, for a conflict-torn region. (It means “peace” in Latin).
participant-3927, 8:46 PM, February 5
Here’s the LinkedIn page of Joseph Avatar, another Objectivist who worked on the idea of starting a new country. (His posts three years ago on HBL have inspired me to begin my initiative.) Joseph wrote on HBL that he is at his 11th attempt. We can see this in his LinkedIn page, where he numbers each attempt as a separate occupation. His initative is called SoReason now, and was before called Mindshore.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joseph-avatar/details/experience/
participant-3927, 8:49 PM, February 5
Here’s what he writes about his 4th attempt (on LinkedIn): “I went to French Polynesia and constructed a very basic place to float. I encountered several problems that made it very difficult to succeed, including property theft and language barriers.” In attempt 7, he writes: “I tried to get experience in aquaculture, in the thought that it would let me gain experience I could use as the economic engine for Mindshore. "
participant-3927, 12:13 AM, February 6
@participant-4603 @participant-7471 both of you had interest in drafting a constitution. Here’s a related Declaration of Freedom by the Thomas Paine Institute: https://thomaspaineinstitute.com/foundational-truths-2/
Use the nav menu to read the other two parts.
participant-4603, 9:20 AM, February 6
I’ll give it a close read, but after a few seconds, it’s already not good. Let me explain.
The first issue is that it’s already whining and complaining about the United States without naming it, which is cowardly. At least the U.S. Declaration of Independence had the chutzpah to take on the King.
The second issue is that they go again with all of this “we” language. I think the constitution I drafted about eight years ago is probably a lot more in line with Anthemism than I had thought because it has a whole list of different “I” language grievances.
participant-3927, 6:15 PM, February 6
I think the document is written as a template that could be modified. Their book indeed names United States, and they think that the initiative will most likely come from Americans, doing it in a place like Puerto Rico or similar. But they wrote the declaration in generic terms, so that it’s not limited to Americans.
participant-3927, 6:16 PM, February 6
About “we” or “I,” I don’t have an opinion. I just want it to be clear “we, the people” is not interpreted in favor of supporting collectivism, as it seems to be now. This issue came up in a debate between between Harry Binswanger and Benjamin Barber. A woman from the audience, sympathetic with statism, asked to whom “we” referred to in the constitution. Harry said that “we” refers to the people who were in the room, signing the document. For, Harry said, he can’t be held responsible for what other people signed, he didn’t sign it himself.
participant-3927, 6:25 PM, February 6
Still, a country is a social system – it is not needed to a man stranded on an island. So the foundational documens of a country must describe how people in it will live. It’s a “we” problem.
participant-3927, 7:38 PM, February 6
My post on HBL, that was selected as the top 5, for email send out. Reposting it here.
participant-3927, 7:38 PM, February 6
The last paragraph is:
How many of you still think that “reform” in USA is feasible? I say: exit, not reform. It’s valid to say that ideas drive history, but by what vector? By what catalyst? The Zionists realized that they can’t kill antisemitism, and the only way out is to create a Jewish state. A drive to create a new laissez-faire state is going to give voice to our ideas, and rather than losing Objectivists, we will be gaining Objectivists.
participant-4603, 9:32 PM, February 6
Isn’t that a bit of an anarchist position? Don’t we see some of that logic in Lysander Spooner’s “Constitution of No Authority?”
participant-3927, 1:12 AM, February 7
Perhaps if out of context. What is actually claimed that one can’t accept the legitimacy of a social contract concept.
participant-3927, 6:50 AM, February 7
HB Letter member Bradley Foster writes on the topic of creating a new country (post 56028):
I think the USA is the last best hope for such a free society. A major part of how and why our forebears were able to create the USA in the first place was that they had an entire continent that was largely unexplored and almost completely undeveloped … Now, however, I think that the Earth has been too completely explored and is too completely controlled by sovereign political entities for such a society to have any chance to survive anywhere on any of the other continents. And the USA as a national/Federal entity, despite the Constitution, may be too far gone down the road of statism …
He suggests that the only way of this situation is to do it on US state lever:
I think the idea of one or more of the United States creating such an environment within its sovereign borders, perhaps in concert with other neighboring states, coupled with a national movement to push back against Federal government overreach and overregulation, has the best chance of success.
participant-3927, 6:56 AM, February 7
There is a project with which Kevin (@participant-2711) is familiar, the Free state of Jefferson, which purports to have more freedom. Kevin, can you point the leaders of that project to anthemism.org?
participant-4603, 4:56 PM, February 7
Basically.
participant-3927, 9:01 AM, February 9
In my article on handling Muslim mass immigration, I outlined methods required for a free country (open borders) to cope with. For one, majority of people who would be willing to immigrate first, would be people from Muslim countries. Also, it’s nobody’s fault that he was born in the wrong country, he still has individual rights. Therefore , I argue that a country must not impede Muslim’s to come in, but shouldn’t allow Sharia and no-go zones, as it happened in Europe.
participant-3927, 9:03 AM, February 9
In this connection, here’s what Ayn Rand writes in “The Objectivist Forum”, June 1980 pg. 3,
The idea that this country is a refuge for the victims of any political tyranny is a profound tradition and I am certainly in favor of it.
There should be a place on earth where people can be free from the pursuit of the tyrants of their own country. In that sense, I am a refugee, and I am in sympathy with anyone who seeks political asylum.
participant-3927, 4:16 PM, February 9
You don’t have Muslim friends ? I have met many Muslims, to them it’s just a religion they are born to, just like many people are born into Christianity, and identify as Christian. Outside of this, they are completely normal.
participant-3927, 4:25 PM, February 9
I do not advocate open borders for Israel, for it’s in a state of war.
participant-3927, 4:29 PM, February 9
I rented a room for a year in a Muslim family from Uzbekistan, in Brooklyn. I had no issues, and have only pleasant memories.
In my son’s school I made friends with a Muslim family from India, our kids were good friends, and we spent a lot of time together. Now they moved to Dallas, so that’s ended.
participant-3927, 4:35 PM, February 9
The other day I met a Muslim woman from Iran, her kid goes to the same math class as mine, and we waited together. She identifies as Muslim, but had no head covering, dressed and spoke completely clear minded. She said that sometimes she can have alcohol. That’s like many Jews that I know who eat pork and work on Saturday, but who are not atheists.
participant-3927, 8:53 PM, February 9
When it has no Cold War also, Yes. To do this, Israel has to fully win its wars, so that the enemy knows he lost.
