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Thursday, February 21, 2013

Gun Shy Amazon

I have twenty-one books for sale on Amazon Books, and eleven on Amazon Kindle. Upon reading the news that Amazon is pressuring – nay, demanding – that sellers of guns and firearms accessories withdraw some of their products from sale on Amazon, I sent Amazon Books this letter.

20 February 2013

Amazon Books

Sirs/Mesdames: 

I direct your attention to an article on the Web forwarded to me, "Amazon Removing Gun Products From Store. Worse Than EBay," about Amazon demanding that vendors remove certain accessories and other gun-related items from their Amazon listings. If they do not comply, these vendors will be banned from selling all their products on Amazon. The veracity of this article is not to be questioned, albeit it would be helpful if you confirmed this ultimatum.

I cannot imagine what prompted Amazon to reach this decision other than a craven submission to the anti-gun hysteria that arose even before the Sandy Hook School, Newtown, CT massacre, together with all the misinformation about guns and gun-owners propagated by enemies of the First and Second Amendments of the Constitution, a hysteria which has gripped not only many Americans but Congress and numerous advocacy groups. This hysteria can be likened to a kind of moral epilepsy, rooted in a penchant for political correctness and towing the government line, in this instance an episode of too little neuronal activity in the brain, a phenomenon which has caused you to bite your tongue and require your vendors and customers to bite theirs.

That being said – and I am sure you are not so far gone that you cannot detect the tone of contempt and opprobrium for you in this missive, but, then, when have cowards ever felt shame for their behavior? – I offer you an opportunity to maintain a consistency in your policy and win the acclaim of the anti-gun bloc. I strongly urge you to remove from sale on Amazon Books any title of mine in whose title the term "gun" occurs. Two titles come to mind at the moment, Whisper the Guns, and Running Out My Guns. In fact, I suggest that you remove all my titles, for in each and every one of them guns are employed. This would include the whole series of Sparrowhawk, novels about the American Revolution.

Come to think of it, why not remove all titles that feature guns and violence from your listings? If you are going to be so conscientiously and foolishly sensitive and picayune about the matter of guns and gun-violence, it would salve your sense of moral worth with an act of total and unqualified consistency.

Just think of the national acclaim you would garner by performing such an act of contrition. Of course, it would reduce your listings by an unimaginable percentage, and consequently affect your revenue, but, after all, what is money when it is imperative that you do the "right thing"?

By the way, I have sent this as an open letter to as many publications and media as I could muster the time for.

Best wishes in your new endeavor,

Edward Cline

Although written in a contemptuous, satirical vein, this was a serious letter, which remains unacknowledged by Amazon. As an "open letter," it was sent to publications friendly to gun ownership and the Second Amendment, and also to hostile ones, including the New York Times and the Washington Post. While I received programmed, automatic acknowledgements from all the publications, only one actual, living person replied, the editor of the Firearmblog, who thanked me for sending it.

Let us take a look at Amazon's anti-sales spiel that was sent to a vendor of "gun-related" products.

This product has been identified a X. X are prohibited from sale on Amazon.

 For more information on our policies, search on "Restricted Products" and "Listing Restrictions" in seller Help.

**Action Required: Within 48 hours of this notice, please review your remaining listings and make any changes necessary to ensure compliance with our policies.

Failure to comply with this request may result in the removal of your selling privileges.

We appreciate your cooperation and thank you for selling on Amazon.com.

As reported by the Firearmblog, the notice was sent to selected vendors. The identity of the specific vendor to whom the notice was sent was protected by the editor of the Firearmblog. But, if you look at the "Weapons" page of permitted and impermissible gun-related items, just about the only "guns" that can be sold on Amazon are "play" guns, such as BB guns, air guns, and paintball guns. Under the Prohibited listing one finds just about the whole range of "real" guns, that is, guns one could use to defend oneself against burglars, rapists, and muggers. Or even government agents. Prohibited "weapons" included in the list are bows and arrows, spears, pepper spray, muzzle-loading, black powder muskets and black powder itself. And starting pistols.
Amazon's list was probably culled from restrictions established by the ATF and other government agencies charged with "protecting" citizens against gun violence, and too likely with "protecting" government agents against any meaningful resistance to government gun violence against American citizens.

In reviewing the Prohibited list, one can only wonder why Amazon permits the sale of any kind of firearm at all. Apparently, anything that goes "bang!" or "whoosh!" or "Pssst!" or "click!" scares the hell out of Amazon.
A friend remarked to me: Why don't they also prohibit the sale of violent video games, and movies that feature gun violence, and nonfiction books on guns and marksmanship and so on? Why not go whole-hog, and ban things like jigsaw puzzles of Howard Pyle's painting of the battle of Bunker Hill, or of John Trumbull's Death of General Warren, or of Custer's Last Stand, or perhaps a video of the Marines' rifle drill.

The anti-gun hysteria has spread to major companies such as Comcast, which, upon purchasing a controlling interest in NBC, has banned ads by gun sellers. As reported by Newsmax:
The ban came to light when John Kupiec, president of the advertising agency Canadian American Corp., attempted to purchase an ad for Michigan-based gun store Williams Gun Sight Inc. but was denied, according to CBS News' Detroit affiliate.

"Comcast Spotlight has decided it will not accept new advertising for firearms or weapons moving forward," the cable provider said in a statement to CBS. "This policy aligns us with the guidelines in place at many media organizations."

The Hollywood Reporter elaborates:

NBC Universal does not accept ads for fireworks or weapons but for some exceptions. For example, the NBC Sports Network will allow ads for hunting weapons, but it will not accept spots for guns such as assault rifles and hand guns. Several shows focusing primarily on guns, such as Guns & Gear, will no longer appear on NBC Sports, though other hunting focused shows, including Elk Fever, likely will return.

The term "assault weapon" is about as denigrating as the term "Islamophobia." As "Islamophobia" is meant to demonize anyone who criticizes Islam, "assault weapon" is intended to demonize guns. But if one examines the term "assault weapon," it is an anti-concept that evokes an image of violence. After all, "assault" means to attack, and "assault weapon" means a tool with which to attack. It can mean a tool that goes "bang!" and shoots a bullet, or it can mean a tool that goes "thunk!" like a ball-peen hammer or a rock. I think I've read a detective novel in which a badminton racket was used as a weapon. Or was it a golf club? Better alert President Obama about that. For all the pricy golfing he does while Rome burns, and for all the words he's slung against the lifestyles of the rich and famous, should he be acting as a model for a mass murderer?
Anti-gun advocates in and out of government love the term "assault weapon" precisely because it demonizes gun makers and gun owners. For them, it is a term of precision and defines the kinds of guns they don’t like. As reported by the NRA, however, the term is actually military slang and is hardly precise or definitional.

Reporters, fond of the way that the slang term "assault weapon" spruces up their articles, and ignoring the maxim that a term that means everything means nothing, have continued to use it to refer to things other than firearms – including baseball players, knives, folding chairs, telephones and SUVs. And, they've applied the "assault" prefix to other things that, like guns, can be used, but almost always are not used, as weapons -- including dogs and knives – ignoring one Drug Enforcement Agency agent's reminder that "It doesn't become a weapon until you use it."

The Brady Campaign has implied that the "gun industry" invented the term "assault weapon" in 1986, but the implication is obviously false. As noted above, the Brady Campaign used the term in 1984 and newspapers used it varyingly during the previous 41 years. However, though we believe much of what the Brady Campaign says is false by design, in this instance the error may be innocent. After all, the group states on its website that it changed its name to Handgun Control, Inc., in 1980. In fact, the name change occurred in 1979. If the Brady Campaign doesn't know when it adopted its own name, it can't be expected to know when it or others adopted "assault weapon."
Media Matters, a George Soros-funded propaganda site, provides a history of "assault weapons" dating back to Nazi Germany (1944: Nazi Germany develops the first mass produced assault rifle, the Sturmgewehr), but otherwise blasts all "assault" weapons that go "rat-tat-tat-tat" and inveighs against them like a virgin spinster ranting against premarital and marital sex. As with the New York Times and Washington Post, it refuses to use any other term than "assault weapon." The Media Matters article is loaded with scary pictures of "assault weapons" and military ads that boast of the efficacy of "assault weapons." An ad for the Bushmaster "assault weapon" is also featured. All the illustrations are intended to incriminate guns, gun sellers, and gun owners.

It concludes with this non-news:

January 24, 2013: Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) introduces legislation for an expanded assault weapons ban that prohibits the "sale, transfer, manufacturing and importation of" 157 named assault weapons, along with any rifles or pistols derivative of the AR-15 or AK-47. The legislation also bans rifles with the ability to accept a detachable magazine that also have one or more military features including a "pistol grip; forward grip; folding, telescoping, or detachable stock; grenade launcher or rocket launcher; barrel shroud; or threaded barrel."
I wonder what would happen if I invited big Democratic donor Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, to a friendly round of golf, or even to tennis. No, it wouldn't happen. The club or the racket might scare him off. Besides, he'd spurn the invitation. I'm not one of the wealthy liberal elite. I like to "cling" to my Constitution, and guns.

I'm betting he goes around with an armed guard, too.

20 comments:

  1. Criticism and argument won't matter to Amazon (et al.): it's not run by intellectuals (or anything remotely resembling such). But in time--the market will. Wanna bet?

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  2. Jayeldee: I did receive an acknowledgement of the letter, by an Amanda Nix, who said she would forward my letter to "the correct team." If what you say is true about Amazon's staff, perhaps they'll be stumped by its contents. In any event, what I said needed to be said, regardless of the recipients' literacy.

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  3. Yes, it needed to be said - thank you. Maybe Amazon should ban sales of hammers, baseball bats, knives...

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  4. This campaign by the Orren Boyle businessmen/government is the same as that committed against cigarettes. Re Ed's previous article on the Left: these fascist villains are serious in their intentions to destroy all freedom, independent action and prosperity.

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  5. It is a disturbing trend that even private entities are now following the call which opposes the idea of private gun ownership.

    Since I am a new follower of this blog, I hope you won't mind of I use the comment section of this article to give my own assessment of the recent wave of anti-gun activism. I hope that it will shine some new light onto the thought process that underlies it.

    This renewed hysteria about the validity and extend of gun ownership is symptomatic of a European outlook on life that is taking over in America. (Pierce Morgan serves as an excellent poster child for this trend.) The European outlook is generally very cynical and has little or no regard for the reasoning individual and his volitional capacity. Instead, man is seen as entirely determined to be a “selfish” and unpredictable beast that is driven by emotional whims, ready to go wild and eat his neighbor at a moment’s notice. (Needless to say that you wouldn’t want such a beast to have access to firearms.) The only determining factors that can stop a man from acting like a beast are the right social institutions, which can change the nature of his fate to which he would otherwise be determined (Three cheers for Plato and the Philosopher Kings). The central and most important of these institutions is the government, which therefore must also be the most important determining agent in people’s lives. If a man does not behave in a desirable way, there must be a fault with his conditioning, which becomes a rallying cry for making “improvements” to the conditioning agency (i.e. the government). Such improvements are usually called for and made by public servants, such as politicians, academics, bureaucrats and celebrities. Their special status is enshrined in the first article of the founding document of modern democratic socialism: The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789), which reads:

    “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be based only on common utility.”

    Equipped with this special status, such public servants also often distinguish themselves by being aware of and having overcome their own “selfish” inner beast and can therefore be exempted from the conditioning factors (laws) that are binding for ordinary people.

    [To be continued...]

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  6. Let me play devil’s advocate here to make this thought-process a bit more accessible. You see, a public servant like Rosie O’Donnell can be entrusted with the armed protection of a bodyguard, because she has in a sense earned this right by being a celebrity (i.e. by being publicly celebrated, i.e. by possessing common utility). She has also understood the importance of the right conditioning of the masses, which is clearly demonstrated by her anti-gun activism. But an ordinary person (left to his own devices) is cut off from reason and is ultimately not amenable to persuasion. So it is crucial for the government to act as a role model and take a stance by declaring guns to be a bad thing; and what better way to declare them bad than by making them illegal? How else can the “unenlightened” and the “enemies of reason” be persuaded, if not by the use of force? [I refer here to Ed's excellent expose on positive law in his column Rights vs “Rights”]

    It is also crucial that the intention to take away peoples’ guns remains hidden in the process of doing so. After all, nobody wants a violent uprising of a horde of wild and heavily armed beasts. Instead one must act carefully, as one does when putting a saddle on a skittish horse. One must tell people that their freedom to bear arms is respected, while simultaneously take it away from them. That is why you will continuously hear people like Pierce Morgan say that they respect or understand the 2nd Amendment and Americans’ insistence to defend themselves, even though they clearly don’t.


    The long-term goal is to form a society that does not expose people to determining factors which might be harmful to society. That is why only properly trained and certified government employees, such as soldiers and bodyguards of public servants, should be allowed to use on-the-job firearms. Even policemen should be restricted to the use of non-lethal weapons, in order to make sure that a criminal has a chance to be reintegrated into the society that failed to properly condition him.

    Collectivism, feudalism, mercantilism and the rule of force have never been thoroughly repudiated in European thought. The only thing that has changed are the mechanisms which determine who gets to rule whom and for how long. Here a dictatorship is only understood as a phenomenon, in which the primitive masses have succumbed to their inner beast and have put a ferocious pack leader and demagogue in charge. The thought of a malevolent dictatorship of selfless public servants is incomprehensible, for it perceived as the only form of government that allows for the continued existence of civilized society. An anti-gun activist's access to the idea of the 2nd Amendment is exclusively limited to hunting and personal protection against criminals. He cannot possibly fathom its actual intent of guaranteeing common people the means to protect themselves against their own government, for he requires the government to be capable of protecting them from themselves.

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  7. Pete: Excellent mini-essay on guns and anti-gun activism and the broader picture. I would score you on one statement: "An anti-gun activist's access to the idea of the 2nd Amendment is exclusively limited to hunting and personal protection against criminals." I'm afraid anti-gun activism denies even hunting and personal protection, to judge by environmentalist and animal-rights statements, Joe Biden's clownish utterances about shotguns, and statements by others who claim that pens can be used for personal protection, or that women who are attacked by rapists can defecate or urinate in defense of themselves. They're really scraping the bottom of the barrel for objections to self-defense against criminals and police state brands of government force. And the kind of society you describe is best depicted in the 1984 version of Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four" with Richard Burton. Visually, it shows a society existing in a state of complete servitude to the government, dwelling in the ruins of Obama's "You didn't build that, so we destroyed it" and his regulatory and environmentalist allies, and individuals who show the least amount of intelligence being exploited and then eliminated by the philosopher kings of the Party (represented by Burton), first, because they pose a threat to the Party's power, and second, because eliminating them is an exercise of power for power's sake.

    I agree that the Europeans have never ever repudiated the various forms of collectivism that have haunted and shackled them for most of their history, and so now they are experiencing the fruits of their negligence, first, with the super-state of the European Union, and then the mass immigration of Muslims who wish to extinguish what few virtues the Europeans still have.

    I think one of the most laughable and oft-repeated statements to come from today's politicians is that they are proud to be "public servants" ("I am proud of my lifelong public service….") when most of them are in it for the power and money and perks, which they regard as legitimate "payment" for patronizing their constituents with legislation that favors those constituents and screwing all other non-constituents in the country.

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  8. Thank you, Ed.

    Of course I didn't mean to imply that an anti-gun activist is in favor of the 2nd Amendment on the grounds of hunting and personal self-defense. That would be a contradiction in terms. An anti-gun activist is against the private ownership of guns, no matter for what reason.

    By "having access to the 2nd Amendment" I meant cognitive access. He can contemplate the idea of private gun ownership on the grounds of hunting and personal self-defense for a few moments before he rejects it out of hand as outdated and uncivilized. Whereas the idea of private gun ownership as a means of protection for private citizens against tyrannical government is something he is utterly unable to grasp; it doesn't compute; he cannot wrap his head around it; such a concept is not part of his cognitive framework, for the various reasons which I eluded to.

    Your analogy to "Nineteen Eighty-Four" is a good one and I appreciate your recommendation of the movie with Richard Burton, even though I have already seen it many times. The book and the movie are an eloquent illustration of a world in which the underlying ideas and motivations of the anti-gun mentality are consistently applied to all aspects of life.

    Modern Europeans, however, are no longer consistent or principled. Their new political maxim is to reject all forms of extremism. Having fully accepted the dichotomy between the moral and the practical, they do not even take seriously or advocate for their own favorite philosophical ideas.

    Therefore my pick for the most plausible work of dystopian fiction that illustrates the world we're heading for is the short-lived TV show "Firefly" (available on Netflix) and the movie adaptation "Serenity". Here one can find a world ~500 years in the future, in which the forces of democratic socialism and supra-national government (represented by the "Alliance") have triumphed over the remnants of Federal Republicanism (represented by the "Independents"). Consequently every freedom-loving individual (such as the gunslinging hero of the show) is forced to a "new frontier" of barely civilized planets on the edges of explored space.

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  9. For readers' information, I just sent this follow-up note to Amazon Books:

    Hi,

    I never received a response to my original note about Amazon's anti-gun policy. Amanda Nix emailed me that she had forwarded my note to the "correct department," whatever that means. You should know, however, that you may now read my column on this issue, which also contains the note, and that the column has been picked up by Family Security Matters, Capitalism Magazine, and numerous other weblogs.

    For your convenience, I include a link to my Rule of Reason column here.

    http://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/2013/02/gun-shy-amazon.html

    Now, what are you going to do about it? Retract your "request" to gun vendors, or punish me for exercising my First Amendment rights by pulling my titles from Amazon Books, or withhold payments? If the latter, that, too, would make great copy. So, think twice.

    Surprise me.

    Best wishes for your new politically correct endeavor,

    Edward Cline

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  10. Ed: Nice followup. I hope some "qualified" Amazon rep swings by, and studies not only your column, but my claim about the vacuity of their management. Perhaps they will take enough umbrage to prove me wrong. (But I'm not holding my breath; and my betting offer stands.)

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  11. Mr. Cline: This is an essay my husband, Oleg Atbashian, recently wrote in the American Thinker. When a publication such as Pravda advises Americans never to give up our guns, you know we're in real trouble!

    http://thepeoplescube.com/peoples-blog/historical-mind-benders-pravda-guns-red-terror-america-t10510.html

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  12. Larissa Scott: Good essay, and quite interesting. However, I've a slightly different take on it, than the one you suggest: that is, if PRAVDA is advocating resistance to disarmament, then they are an ally--and we're in (slightly) less trouble than I thought we were.... On the other hand--never mind--I think I see your point: PRAVDA has become a much lesser enemy than our massive, homegrown ones. I see. Quite right. And either way--an awfully good essay.

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  13. Larissa: Thanks for the recommendation. I'll read it presently.

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  14. Larissa: I sent this note to my broacast list:

    Here are links to two sites: One, an excellent American Thinker article by Oleg Atbashian, "Pravda, Guns, and America," and The People's Cube, a largely satirical site that mocks Communism and collectivism in the context of today's issues. Atbashian's article concerns a double-take about online Pravda's relative freedom of expression, such as advising Americans not to surrender their guns or their gun ownership rights.

    http://thepeoplescube.com/peoples-blog/historical-mind-benders-pravda-guns-red-terror-america-t10510.html

    and

    http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/01/pravda_guns_and_america.html

    I highly recommend both sites. Warning: You could spend all day reading The People's Cube. It's really very well done.

    Ed

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  15. The Left wants to disarm American citizens because it knows that if it wants totalitarian control (which it does) then it can not afford to fight a counter insurgency war throughout the entire land mass of America. Which is exactly what it would have to do if the Left were to make a power move when the bulk of the American citizenry was still armed.

    The Left must disarm non-Leftists. Understand this. THE LEFT'S ULTIMATE AIM IS TO CRIMINALIZE NON-LEFTIST THOUGHT. In time it will then KILL non-Leftists. WHAT LEFTIST DO WHEN THEY OBTAIN POWER IS ALWAYS TO COMMIT MASS SLAUGHTER. History is clear. Guns in the hands of Red State & "Flyover" citizens stand in the way of a Leftist take over.

    Most of today's major corporations are run by Leftists. Ayn Rand showed this in 'AS'. All the villains in Rand's novels were Leftists. Show me one Conservative villain. The Leftists in business will serve their Leftist political masters. In time ever corporation will have no choice but to be agents of a Leftist totalitarian state. Dissenters will be killed.

    But, mainstream Objectivism is too busy bitching at Republicans because they won't import more Mexicans to notice any of this.

    Really.Making.A.Difference.

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  16. Yes, large American corporations are operated by drones, while Leftists write the policies.

    Madmax, don't forget all the effort Craig Biddle went to in order to have his debate on whether god exists. Whew! I'm glad that was cleared up. I'll now sleep easier knowing that Dinesh D'Souza has been put in his place. Meanwhile, the Muslim Brotherhood is dictating policy at the State Department and has the run of the Pentagon. But who cares! Going after mainstream Christians is so much safer.

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  17. MadMax: I'm not completely convinced that Obama's father was a Kenyan or a British subject. His father was more likely Frank Marshall Davis, a communist living in Hawaii and who was on the FBI watch list. You've probably read the stories and seen the photographs. There is absolutely no resemblance between the Kenyan (who was a goat herder and Mau Mau member) and Obama, but there is a perfect match between Davis and Obama. Davis was a professional propagandist for CPUSA, aside from a lousy writer who penned a "black rage" novel about blacks conquering white women. One of those happened to be Stanley Ann Dunham. Davis tried to make a living writing porn for West Coast publishers. There are photographs that Davis took of Stanley Ann posing nude with other women in his house. All this has been verified but no one pays it any attention. Here are several links to the Davis angle.

    http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/10/obama_whos_your_daddy.html

    http://www.wnd.com/2012/07/another-doctored-image-deepens-obama-mystery/

    The paradox, however, is why Obama and his image managers would concoct a story about Barack Obama, the Kenyan, being his father, and not Davis, an American, which, from a presidential eligibility standpoint, would be asking for trouble. There have also been a dozen stories about the bogus nature of the "birth certificate" that was finally coaxed from the White House. I'm inclined to believe that the certificate is indeed bogus (it's been examined by professionals) and that investigators have been stonewalled by authorities in Hawaii and the Mainland in their search for evidence of Obama's actual patrimony. Writers have been asking Obama: If you are a legal occupant of the White House, why not just prove it and clear up the confusion and allay the suspicions? But he hasn't proved it. While his patrimony and antecedents are less important to me than are his destructive policies, his shadowy origins are deserving of more attention and exposure than they have been granted so far.
    Ed

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  18. Ed,

    Thanks for the info on Obama's father. There is alot of info coming out on this. It is getting more interesting by the month. You write:

    "While his patrimony and antecedents are less important to me than are his destructive policies, his shadowy origins are deserving of more attention and exposure than they have been granted so far."

    Yes, of course. He is a collectivist of the egalitarian Leftist variety. He is an Ayn Rand villain come to life, actually worse in many ways. Rand's villains weren't anti-white racists. His ideas matter the most. But...

    As you say, his shadowy past IS cause for concern. Objectivism as a movement and the better parts of the Conservative movement should have been all over this. The only real Conservative who is actually covering this issue is Diana West who is a one woman army for truth. Seriously, I love that woman. Give me one of her over 100 Craig Biddles and Ari Armstrongs.

    Obama is not only a Leftist, he could be something worse. Robbservations is covering this at his blog. But damn mainstream Objectivism will imitate the Left and call you a "conspiracy theorist" with "bad epistemology" to boot.

    I know, I know. Don't be bitter. But fuck, we're supposed to be following the philosophy of one of the greatest firebrands in intellectual history. Well, shouldn't there be some goddamn fire?

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  19. Grant: The Bawer article is spot-on. But you wouldn't know that Jews are fleeing Europe for Britain and other "safer" countries if you relied on the MSM for your news. I recommend to readers here to go to the Bawer link and see for yourselves.

    http://frontpagemag.com/2013/bruce-bawer/europe-a-continent-in-flight/

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  20. Ed wrote: "But you wouldn't know that Jews are fleeing Europe for Britain and other "safer" countries if you relied on the MSM for your news."

    Sadly, you won't learn of it either from ARI or other "mainstream" Objectivist writers. I can only conclude that they just don't give a damn.

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