[There is a] dangerous little catch phrase which advises you to keep an “open mind.” This is a very ambiguous term—as demonstrated by a man who once accused a famous politician of having “a wide open mind.” That term is an anti-concept: it is usually taken to mean an objective, unbiased approach to ideas, but it is used as a call for perpetual skepticism, for holding no firm convictions and granting plausibility to anything. A “closed mind” is usually taken to mean the attitude of a man impervious to ideas, arguments, facts and logic, who clings stubbornly to some mixture of unwarranted assumptions, fashionable catch phrases, tribal prejudices—and emotions. But this is not a “closed” mind, it is a passive one. It is a mind that has dispensed with (or never acquired) the practice of thinking or judging, and feels threatened by any request to consider anything.

What objectivity and the study of philosophy require is not an “open mind,” but an active mind—a mind able and eagerly willing to examine ideas, but to examine them critically. An active mind does not grant equal status to truth and falsehood; it does not remain floating forever in a stagnant vacuum of neutrality and uncertainty; by assuming the responsibility of judgment, it reaches firm convictions and holds to them. Since it is able to prove its convictions, an active mind achieves an unassailable certainty in confrontations with assailants—a certainty untainted by spots of blind faith, approximation, evasion and fear.

Ayn Rand

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. it’s yours.”

— AYN RAND

Ever since reading “The Fountainhead” 32 years ago, I have been a huge fan of Ayn Rand’s ideas.

If you haven’t read any of her works, then you definitely don’t understand her. That’s ironic, because she is the clearest, most articulate writer in the English language I have ever read … and I have read a few. If you read everything she wrote, like I did, you will know exactly where she stands, what her most primary assumptions and premises are, and how she reaches her conclusions. Agree or disagree; you will know. I never, in 10 years of schooling with a major in psychology and a minor in philosophy, ever encountered anyone close to that.

This documentary is really the closest thing I’ve yet seen to a reliable autobiography (or biography) of her.

Nearly everything you read about Ayn Rand is wrong. Before I read her, I mistakenly thought she was a “conservative.” That’s not true. She was certainly no leftist, but she wasn’t primarily political; she was primarily philosophical. Her ideas have guided me more as a student and practitioner of psychology and psychotherapy than as a lover of liberty.

The things you read about Ayn Rand are usually the opinions of people who haven’t read a word of her ideas or novels. When challenged with this fact, the more candid ones will say, “Of course I haven’t read her. Why would I?”

Then why have an opinion about someone you haven’t read or tried to understand?

If you’re going to have an opinion about someone or something, you owe it to yourself, most of all, to make sure that opinion is based on the facts.

I cannot believe this movie was made in 2010. I don’t know how I missed it. It’s beautifully done. It draws on some amazing interviews Rand did in her very final years (late 1970s) with people like Mike Wallace (a real journalist, unlike his son), Phil Donahue and Tom Snyder. These were the leftists of her day. Yet they were Jeffersonian compared to the depraved nihilism we find everywhere around us today, a nihilism Rand foresaw and predicted as the inevitable decline of a culture that totally abandons reason (and freedom along with it).

I believe the title is: “Ayn Rand, in Her Own Words.”

The movie absolutely delivers. It’s the best I’ve seen on her. If you are at all interested in her (or anything I post), please do not miss it

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

The esteemed Victor Davis Hanson posted an excellent analysis of what’s really happening in the Middle East and how the Biden-Harris regime are complicit. The Israel War is Joe Biden’s albatross. They say foreign relations don’t affect elections but such rules don’t apply when Islam and Israel are the subjects.

Whatever the White House projects publicly, behind the scenes they will be playing both sides. They will declare support for Israel as they’ve already started doing, but they will quickly reverse that support when they have a smidgen of “evidence” that Israel is engaged in asymmetrical retribution. But here’s the thing. Asymmetrical retribution is the only option for Israel at this point. They’ve pandered, compromised, and restrained themselves for decades. It doesn’t work. They know this now.

Behind the scenes, the Biden-Harris regime will be working with Iran as they’ve done from the start. They’ll be supportive of Hamas as they’ve been from the start. And they will alert their Pro-Hamas base in the United States that they will hold ISRAEL accountable.

But let’s call it what it is. This is not a Biden-Harris operation. This is 100% being driven by the unholy alliance of Barack Obama, the Deep State, the Military Industrial Complex, and the emerging Multipolar World Order. Biden is the scapegoat. Obama is calling the shots. With that said, here’s Victor Davis Hanson…

Israel, Our White-House Absurdities, and the Left’s Empire of Lies

The Biden administration is furiously trying to contextualize its past, unsupportable policies that have sown global chaos, especially in the Middle East. But the more it spins, the clearer its culpability.

Does it really believe that the long-agreed-upon U.S. green-lighting of $6 billion in sanctions relief to Iran has had no role in Iran’s terrorist support of Hamas, whether psychological or material or both? Do they think we are that stupid?

Even a first-grader might surmise that if a terrorist state knows that an impending $6-billion bonanza will shortly arrive in its coffers, then it will more readily in the here and now send arms to Hamas—on the logical assumption that those costs soon will be more than covered, while making the additional assumption that the United States is complicit in its own fungible use of sanctions relief cash, and thus not innately hostile to Tehran’s self-professed agenda. In short, Tony Blinken is either a naif, a fool, or to use his words “misinforming”.

These administration’s megaphones who deny such fungibility always end up mouthing the same arguments as the lying and murderous theocracy in Tehran.

But then why not—given the Biden-appointed Robert Malley, previously known as Obama’s ISIS advisor (and we remember how that worked out in Iraq), and a self-declared expert on Hamas rapprochement, eagerly accepted the offer to restart the disastrous Iran deal and normalize Iranian-American relations?

And Malley was indeed eagerly at work—until he was stripped of his security clearance for his alleged unlawful dissemination of classified documents, and in addition fell under further scrutiny allegedly for treasonous efforts to insert pro-Iranian activists into the State Department.

What also was behind the initial, natural instincts of the State Department’s “U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs”? On news of the attacks, our State department in Pavlovian fashion immediately posted: “We urged all sides to refrain from violence and retaliatory attacks. Terror and violence solve nothing.”

Yes, as lots of us predicted, that insane virtue signal would eventually be taken down—but only in response to Americans outraged at its amoral inanity.

Was our government’s first inclination to stop Israel’s counter-responses to systematic Hamas murdering? Should Israelis accept another 800, 1,000, or 2,000 dead women and children in the interest of abiding by the instruction of the American “Office of Palestinian Affairs” to avoid “retaliatory attacks”?

For that matter, does the Biden administration admonish Ukraine to refrain from “retaliatory attacks”—since, in its logic, responding to Putin’s “terror” with Ukrainian counter “violence” would “solve nothing”?

Or is it just Israel, a democratic ally, that deserves these sermons?

Or do they not reflect the embarrassing reality that there is a core Democratic base—the toxic Squad, AOC’s Democratic Socialists, the fusion media, and some of the identity politics caucuses—who are Hamas apologists, even if that bankrupt ideology descends into ignoring or condoning the abject slaughter of civilians in their homes?

And are we really to believe, as told, that resumption of hundreds of millions dollars in aid to the Palestinians was also not fungible and used to aid the current murderous agendas of Hamas?

But do not just believe supporters of Israel about that reality.

Instead, read what dissidents in the State Department themselves warned at the time of the dangers of Biden’s resumption of aid to the radical Palestinians: “We assess there is a high risk Hamas could potentially derive indirect, unintentional benefit from U.S. assistance to Gaza. There is less but still some risk U.S. assistance would benefit other designated groups.”

The administration is, of course, back peddling furiously, given its prior appeasement of Iran and Hamas, if not an outright tilt against Israel—again policies that reflected the embarrassing core constituency of the Democratic Party.

Americans should not listen to what Biden’s team now conveniently says, but instead to what it actually does in the upcoming weeks when it is under fire by its base in the new woke Democratic Party, as the Israelis have to go into Gaza, end this toxic death machine, and confront the Hamas global propaganda machine.

A hard rain is soon going to fall abroad.

And the United States better get its house in order, whether defined as standing with its few dependable allies left, securing its own oil and gas supplies, protecting its borders, un-woking and rebooting its suspect military, recalibrating its all too often incompetent and politicized intelligence bureaus—and thus preparing for a world turned upside down.

J. D. Rucker

When a previously free country becomes occupied by an authoritarian government illegally installed, and openly committed to the destruction of all individual rights, the first obligation of any opposition is to destabilize that occupation government. Kevin McCarthy missed out on an important opportunity to destabilize the Biden regime by putting it on a constant defensive, through repeatedly impeaching Biden, his VP and every member of his Cabinet (over and over) so it would be impossible for them to govern. McCarthy didn’t do this, or anything close to it, but he did find time to ensure RINOs got their wish to keep paying billions to Ukraine so Hunter Biden can keep his coke and whore habits going indefinitely.

Nice work, McCarthy.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

“The best teachers are those who show you where to look, but don’t tell you what to see.”

— Alexandra K. Trenfor

Yes, indeed. In other words: The precise opposite of what teachers do today.

More than ever, today’s universities and primary/secondary schools are indoctrination mills. They don’t merely spew propaganda; they present only one side of the story — implying that any other side is irrational.

It would be rational to teach: “1 plus 1 equals 2. No other answer is correct.”

Most subjects are not like this.

It’s not rational to teach economics solely from the Marxist perspective. It should be taught that capitalism is one point of view, and socialism is another point of view, and explain the differences. Leave the student to decide for himself.

Ditto for ethics. Self-sacrifice as the ideal is one point of view. Individualism is another point of view. Describe both, as well as any other approaches to ethics. Encourage questions. Answer the questions as the proponents of each point of view would answer them. If pressed, some teachers will tell you what they think is correct — but only after presenting all the options.

Ditto for “climate science,” which actually isn’t science (at least according to many scientists). Ditto for disease and vaccination theory. The pharmaceutical companies funded by the government are NOT the final and only authority on the subjects. Learning consists of getting other opinions and facts that contradict the dogma of a Fauci.

The purpose here isn’t merely “fairness,” although fairness and objectivity are important side benefits. The purpose here is to teach a child and young adult HOW TO THINK. Even when giving his opinion, a good teacher shares not just his conclusions; he shares the thinking process that led to his conclusions. Assuming he shares his conclusions at all.

The essence of propaganda is to teach only ONE conclusion and ONE thinking process leading to the conclusion. Call this what you want … it is NOT education.

Yet that’s what almost every child gets today — yes, from government schools. But also from the government. The corporate world. The sports and entertainment worlds. From celebrities. From even churches, if you count leftist churches and the Communist Pope. ONE point of view. That’s all anyone is getting.

Is it any wonder we’re in trouble?

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

The purpose of watching the Republican debate:

If Donald Trump were not the overwhelming favorite for the Republican nomination (jail or not) … If any of the candidates really believed a word they said … If any of the candidates had any chance of winning the presidency, given the election fraud so successfully orchestrated openly in the last two elections … If any of the candidates understood that the value of the presidency only exists because of the freedom that once existed in the country … If any of the candidates were smart enough to grasp that in the unlikely event he or she GOT the Republican nomination, instead of Trump, he or she (along with his or her family, including any young children) would subsequently be slaughtered by the ruthless, sociopathic totalitarians running the Party and their media … If any of these candidates weren’t prepared to do ANYTHING (and I mean ANYTHING — including, most especially, the shockingly duplicitous DeSantis) for the cool feeling of becoming “President” …

If ANY of these things were true — if even ONE of them were true — then it might be worth it to watch their so-called debate.

Otherwise: why bother?

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

I keep hearing from people how Democrat (translation: Commiefascist) friends and relatives shame, condemn and even ostracize them for supporting Trump, or any other Republican, or even for challenging the green/medical/socialist/woke orthodoxy of our era.

The people Democrat voters applaud and vote for are presently indicting and imprisoning anyone who disagrees with them. They claim it’s upholding “the law,” but it’s really political persecution … plain and simple. They claim to be enlightened, on the leading edge and “progressive.” They’re progressive all right — just like malignancy (a disease) is progressive, spreading and ultimately eating up everything it destroys.

Leftists in power, who dominate the culture, are capable of ANYTHING. There is no limit to their irrationality and evil. Policies like deliberately turning thieves and violent criminals loose are not, and could not be, based on naivete or stupidity. They know what they are doing. It’s ruining America’s once great cities, and they feel no remorse for it; instead, they triple down.

Your friends and relatives who continue to vote for, and even applaud, these policies are capable of averting their gaze from anything.

Remember this as the tyrants in power start to really let loose.

Sadly, as America’s government turns against its own people, you may have the opportunity to learn who really loves you and stands by you, and who doesn’t. The (first) COVID fascism era was only the preface.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason