Jerry Kirkpatrick's Blog, page 6

The Communist-Fascist-Leftist Democratic-Socialist-Progressive Totalitarians: A Glossary of Dictatorship

This post can be thought of as a kind of compendium of dictatorship, with many links to previous posts where I have touched on the notions.All terms in the title represent people who desire to, or do, exercise absolute authority or power over the citizenry. Differences between the terms and the people who espouse them are negligible. The consequences of such absolute power are not pretty.Let me

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From the Preface to Applying Principles

Applying Principles: Short Essays Based on the Philosophy of Ayn Rand, Economics of Ludwig von Mises, and Psychology of Edith Packer will be published October 1. It is my first ten years of blogging. The book may be preordered at Amazon and Barnes & Noble, with more information on its website books.jkirkpatrick.net. Here are edited selections from the preface.Although I spent thirty-six years in

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“Whataboutism” and the Nature of Principles

“Whataboutism” (1, 2) is an accusation of inconsistency.In recent years it has become a form of the tu quoque (“you too”) fallacy: “what about your (America’s) human rights violations?” But it has another form that has been around probably since the beginning of intellectual argumentation.“You don’t believe women should be drafted into the military, but what about men?”“You don’t believe small

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Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics, by George Reisman—A Review

According to Frances Grimble, professional book reviewer and editor at Lavolta Press, many reviewers are guilty of “not reading the book thoroughly—just skimming, or just reading the first chapter, or reading the press release and jacket copy, but none of the book.”On at least one prominent occasion, and possibly two, that occurred with economist George Reisman’s magnum opus Capitalism: A

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Profits over People or Primacy of Profits?

The favorite refrain—ad nauseam, actually—of the communist-fascist left is that capitalism and its representatives, entrepreneurs, care nothing for people.* Profits are all that capitalists seek, exploiting both workers and customers.In response to such Marxist blather, let me just say that profits are sales minus costs and the only way to earn a profit under true capitalism is to create and

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Is Big Business Still America’s Persecuted Minority? Or Are We Talking about Work versus Robbery, Corporatist Socialism, and Fascism?

In 1961 Ayn Rand delivered a lecture titled “America’s Persecuted Minority: Big Business.” The speech was subsequently printed in her 1966 book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, chap. 3.In the intervening years the notion of big business being a persecuted minority has been scoffed at by friends and foes alike. Today’s politics of social media titans raises the question once again.The scoffers,

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Business Ethics, Moral Values, and the Herd Conformity of Virtue Signaling

So-called virtue signaling means showing off to the significant others of one’s group in order to maintain identity as a prominent and respected member. It is always other directed with eyes on conforming to the herd. “Sucking up” might be a vernacular way of describing the behavior. “Looking good to be good” is another way.Genuinely virtuous behavior is an expression of one’s character and what

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All It Takes Is Guts

A president from the American past stated this about his previous four years:During this course of administration, and in order to disturb it, the artillery of the press has been levelled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare.No, this is not a statement of our most recent former president. The words are from Thomas Jefferson’s second inaugural on March 4,

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Romance, Fantasy, Arrogance, Blindness: An Inside Look at the Communist New Left

David Horowitz’s 1997 autobiography Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey has just come out in a second edition. The book provides many insights not just into the thinking of both his Old Left parents and Horowitz himself and his New Left colleagues, but also into who and what is influencing us today. Here is Horowitz’s summary of the communist dream:Marxism was about a new creation that would

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"They Just Don’t Care"—Rationalization and the Need to Look Good

“They” in the title of this post refers to our culture’s intelligentsia. This elite includes mainstream media, teachers and professors who control today’s education system, certain entertainers and business leaders who think they are qualified to speak out about politics, and, of course, or especially, politicians and the unelected deep staters who have no second thoughts about issuing