Some SOLOists probably read PZ Myers' popular Pharyngula blog, if only for his tireless work against stupid religionauts. Others may read it for the cool biology and the cool pictures of cephalopods.

He is, of course, a godless liberal, which makes some of his remarks unpleasant at times for those of us who view liberals as frightening zombies like Barack Hussein Osama bin Chavez Hitler-Stalin.

Rare, rare indeed are the times when PZ mentions Objectivism and/or Rand. But today, in a post on crackpottery as a male pursuit he lets loose an aside:

Now Pascal Boyer has put together a brief ontology of crackpottery. He seems to have
rediscovered the Salem Hypothesis — 'scientists' who claim to have
disproven evolution are often actually engineers — in a rather more
general form, and has a few other generalizations, like that all
crackpots are male, that are only roughly true (I can think of many
exceptions: famous ones would be Madame Blavatsky and Ayn Rand). Come to
think of it, though, most but not all of my raving mad anti-fan mail does
come from males…[link]

Well, out of the shadows come the fire-breathing Pharynguloids who are either full-on Objectilibertarians or Objectivist-gleaners -- and some quite savage comments ensue. Here's a sample at the tail end:

Posted by: Russell | April 10, 2009 6:29 PM

Mike Caton writes:

..wouldn't you rather have a debate with a libertarian capitalist who
makes arguments from fact and reason?

What makes a lot of libertarians tick is the notion that economic
systems should be derived from moral first principles. It's that
approach, rather than their conclusion, that strikes the rest of us as
decidedly odd. As a liberal, I recognize capitalism as an extremely
productive form of economic organization that generates innovation and
the practical technology of the modern world. When thinking about
political issues, a liberal views capitalism as something like an engine
in a car: it's an essential component, but not the end-all and be-all of
car design. It's perfectly reasonable to also want air conditioning and
air bags, even if the air conditioner puts extra burden on the engine,
and even if the effort that goes into designing air bags means less
effort put into souping up the engine. The thing that seems odd about
market fundamentalists isn't that they value capitalism -- of course, so
do we! -- but that they make it a measure of things rather than a matter
of what's practical.

SOLOists are encouraged to drop into the still-active thread, now at 122 comments. Some thoughtful libertarian defences of Randian thought and some interesting analogies, as above -- along with some slagging of ARI. Food for thought -- or food for argument -- at the very least.

(no one as yet has come to the defense of Madame Blavatsky)

Photo: http://www.gnosticliberationfront.com

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