Archive for January, 2004

If you’ve noticed how harsh I’ve been on Dean, you might think that I would be pleased to see him to go ape on national television. Not so – I’d rather see him run against Bush than any of the other leading candidate. Since they are all equally communist, I’d at least like to see the candidate with the least chance of beating Bush win the primary. Just to cover my bets, I had better stick to bashing the leftists in general:

Larry Elder: The left supported the war in Iraq, then flip-flopped when it was politically advantageous.

Thomas Sowell: The Left’s problem is “that they are running out of the poor, who serve as a justification of the left’s drive to extend their power over all the rest of us.”

It has come to my attention that I have more money in my bank account that any college student in his right mind should keep around. It’s not that I’m stingy, or that I don’t know what to get, but that there are so many things I want, that I don’t know where to start. To help me decide how to spend my limited budget, I made a list of the things I want.

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After each full day of skiing during the last week, I recovered my body by exercising my mind – notably by reading The Ominous Parallels. Here is the review I submitted to Amazon.com afterwards:

As a Jew, I have watched, read, and visited countless accounts of the Holocaust – but not one of them correctly identified the ideas that brought it about or the ideas that will prevent it from happening again. In some cases, I was first shocked by the accounts of survivors and then horrified when they offered as a solution the same ideas that created the Nazis.

“The Ominous Parallels” finally exposes the cause and answer to Fascism. Dr. Peikoff presents a compelling and cogent thesis on the evil of collectivism in terms of the fundamental ideas that shape our history by masterfully analyzing the intellectual and cultural climate that led to the Holocaust and its parallels to today’s America. Along the way, he outlines the development of Western philosophy – from the glorious creation of the United States to the rise of skepticism, pragmatism, collectivism, and the Weimar culture. Broad philosophical, political, and cultural trends are analyzed and dissected according to their basic premises, as you will never hear in a history class.

Both those well read in and new to the philosophy of Objectivism will find this book accessible and the arguments reasoned out and supported by numerous examples. This is not light reading, however– I spent as much time pausing to digest and integrate the ideas in this book as I did reading it. Those unfamiliar with Objectivism may have some difficulty connecting the author’s asides on abortion, physics, and religion to the central theme, but it does not detract from the overall message.

As Dr Peikoff states, it is impossible to predict the future or know whether the Holocaust will repeat itself – but it is certain that only by understanding and adopting a proper philosophy can America survive as a free country. If this book succeeds in teaching the world about the importance of ideas, then six million shall not have died in vain.

I shredded, ripped, and tumbled down the black diamonds like mere bunny slopes (or was it the other way around?) and had an awesome time in Breckenridge. Check out the photos here – the film camera shots are coming soon.