Oceania Has Never Been at War With the Cato Institute

Last updated on: August 30, 2012 at 8:53 am by Jeremy Lott

Oceania Has Never Been at War With the Cato Institute 2012-08-30T08:53:22-07:00 Jeremy Lott

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

In the second excerpt of Deep Galt’s communique, my source schools me on how Ayn Rand Institute Objectivists, who had for years denounced libertarians, can suddenly do a 180 and send one of their top guys to run the Cato Institute.

“What you have to understand about the ‘orthodox’ Objectivist movement, the ARI wing of it,” wrote Deep Galt, “is that it is essentially authority-based. Something is true and consistent with Objectivism if the top authorities in the movement say so. Everyone down the line is expected to step in line.”

DG disagrees with me on one point: “I wouldn’t call it a ‘cult.’ It’s a narrow, insular little establishment. Pretty commonplace, but certainly not the kind of place [Fountainhead hero] Howard Roark would have wanted to hang out.”

The authority-driven nature of Objectivism, says DG, “explains how Objectivists can condemn Libertarianism for 20 years, and then without warning or explanation, one of ARI’s top guys turns around and becomes president of the biggest Libertarian organization, and hardly anybody pipes up. It doesn’t matter if it’s intellectually consistent. All that matters is that Yaron Brook, John Allison, and Leonard Peikoff approved it.”

This feels almost novelistic to DG, but not an Ayn Rand novel: “It all has a weird sort of ‘Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia’ feel to it.”

In the next installment we’ll get into one very troubling case that everybody should perhaps pay closer attention to.

Previous Post

August 29, 2012

USA! Racists!

Next Post

August 30, 2012 BREAKING! John Allison's Non-Denial Non-Denial

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 1600 24 Frames Per Second Adventures in Catholicism Evergreen Gay Old Time Hammockonomics Lit Crit Lit Life Paulistas Philosophy Press Crit PSA Q&A Sermons and Soda Water Shop Talk Silly Season Sounds Stupid Stupid People Uncategorized Warm Bucket Brigade Wine and Women Wisdom for the Ages

Select a Month April 2015 February 2015 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What was Ezra's profession?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Soldier Farmer Scribe Priest