True believers, some of you are aware that we have been working hard on the development of an all-new, all-amazing, YUGE broadcast to accompany your favorite web magazine (this one). However—it isn’t ready (SAD!). BUT we thought that we would dip our feet into the pool and take the mic for a spin anyway. After all, what’s not to love about amateur hour.
Disclaimer 1: We assume rudimentary knowledge of Objectivism, Ayn Rand’s life, high times and misdemeanors and perhaps a degree of activity on Social Media arguing with Objectibots.
Disclaimer 2: Not everything said in this podcast was perfect, correct or flawless. It’s a first draft of things to come but live radio is never without flaws unless it’s pre-scripted.
Disclaimer: Jeff Britting is innocent.
The following broadcast is an answer to a series of events that revolve around ‘fake news’ Objectivists who believe that Ayn Rand’s philosophy is a religion (or at least act and sound like it). The roots of this may go back to Branden himself but it is Leonard Peikoff—Ayn Rand’s supposed intellectual heir (whatever that means) and the self-described ‘foremost authority on Objectivism’, that has best (or worst) represented this idea of a religious figurehead as it pertains to the supposed Objectivist ‘movement’.
This situation became absolutely clear several years ago with a number of statements made by Peikoff in regards to whether someone was or was not an Objectivist, dependent on his evaluation of their political viewpoint, participation, etc.
Things have gotten progressively (pun) worse ever since, with the culmination being the recent and prolific pronouncements on social media via ‘fake-news’ Objectivist ‘authorities’ associated with ARI—Peikoff’s experiment in an Objectivist Vatican—that many actual Objectivists shouldn’t be using the title if they disagree with so-called BS authorities like Binswanger or Margolis (on immigration) or Greg Salmieri (on anything). In fact, Greg has christened us heretics with a new title. We’re not Objectivists (even if we think we are), we’re actually ‘Secular-Conservative Ayn Rand Fans’. I guess it could be worse.
Mixed together with the above mess is the infusion of various post-modernist / flying spaghetti Marxist ideologies that the ARI ‘fake-news’ Objectivists have adopted, the newest being the idea that perhaps human sexuality—GENDER itself—is dependent on belief, wish, whim and not the beautiful piece of equipment between your legs (or lack thereof).
Anywho, as mentioned—the following presentation is NOT perfect (especially the first overview of Objectivism on two-feet). It is rambling and ranty and amusing and witty and rude. Maybe too much of some and not enough of another (but I didn’t call Greg, ‘Sweaty Salmieri, did I?). And it’s got some errors in it. But it is also something you rarely get from an Objectivist—REALITY—from a man who actually has balls, brains and lives by the philosophy that Ayn Rand espoused and codified without the need to proselytize or otherwise smash his friends in the head with his moral, philosophical or aesthetic superiority.
And so now I present the love-able, wild, humble (not really) and ridiculously good looking hero of the Five Points—East-Coast Enzo! (not the baker) in his first Classical Liberal Podcast / Broadcast: OBJECTIVISM AS RELIGION? (we came up with this after the podcast ;P)