My lip was curling the entire time I read this (and I don't tend to make that expression much). This reminds me of Bertram Scudder's article "The Octopus" - a bucket of slime emptied in public. Was it really necessary to waste that many words on such a ridiculous premise? That's time I'm never getting back.

Interesting commentary. But is it not so... that in order to point out a dichotomy one must paint in black and white. The in between only complicates the message...they'll end up on one side or the other or hopefully realize their wishy washy path and straighten out.

I've been this route, in degrees of probability but the black and white of it is: the only true division in society is "Conscience" (which is much more than just a voice) "those that have and those that have not,
Now the time comes for the middle, the reasons and the outcome of each...which is much harder and complicated than I ever expected.

I think, Ayn, found herself here but realized it was necessary in order to awaken the middle...cause right generally stays right and left rarely strays but the middle are curious so might they be the one's that read here books?

As for his take on "Robin Hood", rarely does anyone get it; Robin stole from the looters, the government, the usurpers and gave back to those they stole from. The tax payers, the true value creators, the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker.

I disagree with all but the last sentence.

An atheist has no belief in the existence of a god or gods, period. A person with a atheism belief has a hypothesis about the non-existence of god.
Neither of those, a non belief in the existence of god and a belief or hypothesis about the non-existence of a god, have anything to do with humans being an end all and be all. Objectivism is atheistic because it considers existence as the base of nature and of consciousness leaving no place for a supernatural god.

Buckley had intelligence as capacity misused. If Ayn Rand was fooled over anything else it didn't last long.

I once met Buckley (much, much later than Ayn Rand did) and was thoroughly unimpressed. He was no different than the public image you saw.

Yes, that line jumped out.

Well, not being an atheist (having, unlike so many folk nowadays, sufficient proof that humans are not the end all and be all) I'm sure Mr. Whittaker, when he thinks of this article, is in a state of eternal face-palming.

Despite Buckley’s reputation as an intellectual, I found him arrogant and far from a thinking individual. Back in 1961, not knowing better and wanting a conservative to speak at the University of Oregon, I gathered up enough contributions to bring him to the campus. I picked him up at the Eugene airport, drove him to the University, spent time with him, and drove him back to the airport.

Among the many things I found wrong were not only his conclusions (we can all make a mistake) but in his processes. He would start from his premises (in economics, by the way, he was a big fan of Henry George) as if they were axioms and then require dialogue from there. He never permitted his premises to be questioned. This is consistent with a person born and raised with religious dogma, but I found him to be a phony.

Psychology experiments seem to show that that choice may be much less that commonly thought. In most cases, what one perceives as having been chosen, was already chosen at the subconscious level since a chosen act has already begun before the awareness of the action is recognized. So in many chosen actions there is a little time shifting as to whether the choice or the start of the action came first. One big choice that one can make freely is to inhibit an action that is starting. That way one can stop flying of the handle before security is called. Choosing to think is one of the more difficult choices that humans can freely chose. It is sometimes like having to do a dirty job when it would feel better to just go floating through life. I do mathematics and find it more and more difficult to chose to make the extreme effort to think though abstract math as I enter my later 70's though I still recognize that doing the thinking is a matter of choice. Just can't get the ideas that used to subconsciously be popped into awareness that I could choose to think about.

That's a great point!
You've got to admit he was a good pretender.

I remember his interview with Rand where he could not get past his religion when she asked him how a intelligent person like him could believe in God? Although that goes for some of the Fox News persons also, like O'Reilly whose facial expression and voice becomes like a small child when he gets religiously uptight trying to believe what comes out of his mouth while knocking atheists.

We can only pray your estimate of the statistical distribution is correct.

That's OK. O ain't what I call normal.

I once saw a segment of firing line where buckley was interviewing an elderly gentleman about 87 or so who was an atheist. buckley asked him if when he died and went to heaven and met st.pete who said to him you never believed in me; why? and the fellow told buckley his response would be "you never gave me enough proof" to which buckley leaned back but said nothing.

My feelings exactly.

Exactly

I thinks this is one of the cases where Rand was fooled. Buckley was not smart. Intelligence is not about being to find the most obscure word to express your thought, so most people have no idea what you are talking about.

Buckley is a perfect product of Conservative philosophy

I am usually pretty dense but the underlying message was so strong that it spoke to me. After partially digesting it, reading it again broke me free of the irrelevant parts and drove the message home. I am quite proud that I was able to recognize this but I thought that only I must have seen it since it was 7 years after it was published and the world was still screwed up. I had no one to discuss it with and the person that threw it on my desk and said "I think you might like this: had moved on. Here I am 52 years later and although we have the internet to discuss it, the world is in even worse shape.

By Growing up they mean being cynical.

When you look into the philosophy of Conservativism this is not surprising at all. Buckley was a perfect product of Hume, Burke, Hayek etc He was skeptical of reason (at best) which I think is why he and many conservatives write such long articles that ramble They believe intelligence is not about reason and evidence, but arcane facts.

This is why I posted the articles on the Philosophy of Conservativism.

I have never seen Peikoff's response. Thanks

The translation of the word "Satan" means "adversary" in Hebrew. It does not refer to a specific entity. That was the work of one of the many people who re-wrote the Jesus story many times, adding this and dropping out that. Written by God? I doubt if those grubby hacks were very god-like.

When ever I saw Buckley on TV he always seemed to have his nose up in the air. I always wanted to give it just a little punch. Just enough to break it. I once saw him in person. I repressed my desire.

Coaldigger:
You have described an evolution that many of us go through when reading Atlas. After having re-read it totally and in bits and pieces, the 1100+ pages became meaningless. I realized this when describing the book to a n email friend I said it was six or seven hundred pages long. Later, I realized that to me, the length had become irrelevant compared to the content.