You are not "largely in agreement". You just posted a video supporting European welfare statism as "capitalism", claimed to be justified by "service". Ayn Rand discussed this in depth. Ignoring philosophy is not practical to change the course of a culture.

Personal hostility:

"Telling everyone they are wrong/ignorant/misleading unless aligned with your 1mm laser is a likely contributor."

"diatribe on greed"

"It was your diatribes that are not compelling. This one included. Not sure what it says, because I stoped actually reading them about a month ago, when you demonstrated a mind narrow enough to traverse a nanotube."

"remind you 'I was right' on your deathbed".

I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not. I actually still do have a full time job, and only a limited time to use on this forum. I spent more time trying to engage you in an actual discussion last time than I have ever spent with anyone in my life in this manner. Learned my lesson.

If you can’t stand up to “diatribe” and “narrow mind”, man up, and deal with the assertion.

I don’t think you’ll find much support that open minds don’t belong here.

I am honestly not sure if he is. I suspect he might be. There are a lot of very well informed people here, and I didn’t want that potential fact but to detract from the nicely developed, logical arguments his org publishes.

Can’t follow the lines on a mobile device.

Hostility? No. Just pointing out the completely impractical nature of your arguments. You can’t even convince me, and I am largely in agreement. No chance of convincing any significant population, and that is my objective.

The post you misrepresented as a "diatribe about greed", which you now say you didn't read, was about Ayn Rand's explanation of why the conservative argument, which is repeated in the video, is destructive and what is required in its place. It was not a "diatribe". Personal attacks smearing posts you don't read as "diatribes" and "a mind narrow enough to traverse a nanotube" are not responsive and do not belong here at all.

I guess I misunderstood your characterization of Dennis Prager. When you stated "he may be a religious nut", it sounded like you were stating it as fact, rather than as a suggestion.

What set me off was the fact that there are many out there who immediately go on the defensive, whenever religion is brought into the equation. We're not in 17th century Europe, but by the way many people react, you would think people were getting burned at the stake on a regular basis (although...the Middle East does appear to be going through such a period).

The reply was to JuliBMe, not to you. Follow the line showing the indentation.

The statement "Ayn Rand was not a conservative (or a liberal) and there are fundamental differences between her philosophy and religion (and other intellectual traditions)" is not "Telling everyone they are wrong/ignorant/misleading unless aligned with your 1mm laser". The difference between Ayn Rand's philosophy and religious conservativism is fundamental. Please drop the personal hostility.

I never commented about Ayn’s philosophy. It was your diatribes that are not compelling. This one included.

Not sure what it says, because I stoped actually reading them about a month ago, when you demonstrated a mind narrow enough to traverse a nanotube.

You replied to my comment, not hers. That is why I asked.

Don’t know, who is down voting. Telling everyone they are wrong/ignorant/misleading unless aligned with your 1mm laser is a likely contributor.

Ayn Rand's philosophy is not a "diatribe about greed". The necessity of "the argument from man's right to exist—from man's inalienable individual right to his own life" is not a "diatribe about greed"; it used to be broadly accepted in the American individualist sense of life, as reflected in the Declaration of Independence's inalienable right to one's own life, liberty and the pursuit of one's own happiness in accordance with one's own chosen goals for his own life. It was undermined and is being replaced by the European counter Enlightenment of altruist and collectivist ethics, and its consequent statism.

Conservativism promoting a collectivist, invalid concept of capitalism and capitalism's opposite -- altruistic service and welfare statism following along with the counter Enlightenment -- is not a step in the right direction no matter how often it is "said many times".

Thoritsu acknowledged in this same thread that he does not know where Ayn Rand discussed the conservatives' bad foundations
https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...

It continues to be destructive for the same reasons Ayn Rand explained long ago, and now takes the form of even worse statism, in accordance with 50 years of worsening practice following the same false premises.

We now see it in this video taken to a more explicit and extreme level politically in sanctioning the even worse welfare statism of European socialism in the name of "capitalism", obliterating both capitalism and the concept 'capitalism' in a hopelessly destructive, unprincipled Pragmatist argument.

Anti-philosophical conservative and libertarian hostility to Ayn Rand ignoring that every politics depends on an ethics and that "freedom and value of free choice" are the opposite of altruistic sacrifice is no more 'practical' now than ever. Neither is the personal hostility.

"Precisely the point" of what? JuliBMe referred to "OUR side". I ask her the questions, who she is talking about and "our side of what?". What does "since you didn’t write, you can’t answer" mean?

Who is hit-and-run 'downvoting' the point that Ayn Rand's philosophy is not religious conservativism?

I would not accept faith and force if they were not hypocritical. I was merely pointing out that they are and it is part of the nature of the thing. You are correct.

As I have said many times, a step in the right direction, is still a step in the right direction. No significant number of people today will take that step based on a diatribe about greed. However, they will take it based on an obvious argument about freedom and value of free choice. Some time in the future, the next argument is made.

As you have said, you don’t agree, fine. I don’t plan to watch the US turn into Venezuela and then remind you “I was right” on your deathbed. You convince people your way, and I’ll do it my way.

Who is “our”? was precisely the point, which, since you didn’t write, you can’t answer.

Our side of what? Who is "our"? Ayn Rand was not a conservative (or a liberal) and there are fundamental differences between her philosophy and religion (and other intellectual traditions). There are political commonalities in some realms in which practical political alliances are possible (and do in fact exist). Such commonalities do make it all one "side".

That Hillsdale does not accept Federal money is not a defense of what it teaches and promotes. The religious right versus the left is a destructive false alternative. At stake are fundamental motivating ideas, not just politics: You don't have to wait until they tax you to observe the ideas that are being taught and spread.

If you can learn something from a Hillsdale video and have the time for it, then do it, but watch out for what they are leaving out or distorting (like the lecture on Plato that was discussed here a couple of years ago and a lecture undermining science they broadcast, but not discussed here on this forum). And always remember that conservative reliance on "tradition", especially when it evades fundamental requirements, is not an argument for a free society.

The religious origins, purpose and emphasis of Ozarks and Hillsdale are all over their websites where it is promoted as the campus way of life and the intellectual basis. The "conservative side" generally package-deals religion with (their version of) a free society, along with their premise of 'going back' to tradition as if that could be an argument against collectivist-inspired statists. That versus the left is a dangerous false alternative.

As for the money influence issue, in a culture in which collectivism and statism are progressively taken for granted at the expense of what we recognize as the right of the individual to his own life, it is only to be expected that more money goes into promoting that collectivism and more of it is available for money to buy. It's the nature of what people predominantly believe, not the fault of money.

If you have money you can still use it to publish and broadcast individualism, but there is much less of that and nothing to protect the rights of the individual from buying government power. If you are poor in any society you can't do as much as what you would like to..

Ayn Rand demolished the "Prager University" video's very unoriginal attempt to "defend" capitalism on the basis of altruistic service to consumers in her 1965 article "The Obliteration of Capitalism" in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.

The Pudzer Prager University video is, in name only, trying to defend a free society on the basis of a hopeless foundation, but it is worse. His foundation supports the opposite, and it isn't freedom he wants, but people functioning as if in a "market economy" to support welfare statism. They are FINOs -- freedom in name only.

Ayn Rand's title, "Obliteration of capitalism", means not just obliterating what is left of capitalism, but the obliteration of the very concept of capitalism. As she put it:

"I [have] said that the 'liberals' are coining and spreading 'anti-concepts' in order to smuggle this country into statism by an imperceptible process—and that the primary target marked for obliteration is the concept of 'capitalism', which, if lost, would carry away with it the knowledge that a free society can and did exist.

"But there is something much less attractive (and, politically, much more disastrous) than capitalism's enemies: its alleged defenders—some of whom are muscling in on the game of manufacturing 'anti-concepts' of their own."

Pudzer's mangling of the essence of capitalism as serving consumers is the same anti-concept Ayn Rand wrote about over 50 years ago when she cited Gov. George Romney's infamous non-reply to the communists promise to "bury capitalism": "Americans buried capitalism long ago", Romney announced, "and moved on to consumerism". (Governor George was the father of the current "moderate" Mitt.)

Ayn Rand wrote, "There are the economists who proclaim that the essence (and the moral justification) of capitalism is 'service to others—to the consumers,' that the consumers' wishes are the absolute edicts ruling the free market, etc. (This is an example of what a definition by non-essentials accomplishes, and of why a half-truth is worse than a lie: what all such theorists fail to mention is the fact that capitalism grants economic recognition to only one kind of consumer: the producer—that only traders, i.e., producers who have something to offer, are recognized on a free market, not 'consumers' as such—that, in a capitalist economy, as in reason, in justice, and in reality, production is the precondition of consumption.)...

"Since none of these attempts can succeed in disguising the nature of capitalism nor in degrading it to the level of an altruistic stockyard, their sole result is to convince the public that capitalism hides some evil secret which imbues its alleged defenders with such an aura of abject guilt and hypocrisy. But, in fact, the secret they are struggling to hide is capitalism's essence and greatest virtue: that it is a system based on the recognition of individual rights—on man's right to exist (and to work) for his own sake—not on the altruistic view of man as a sacrificial animal. Thus it is capitalism's virtue that the public is urged—by such defenders—to regard as evil, and it is altruism that all their efforts help to reinforce and reaffirm as the standard of the good.

"What they dare not allow into their minds is the fact that capitalism and altruism are incompatible; so they wonder why the more they propagandize, the more unpopular capitalism becomes. They blame it on people's stupidity (because people refuse to believe that a successful industrialist is an exponent of altruistic self-sacrifice )—and on people's greed for the unearned (because, after being battered with assurances that the industrialist's wealth is 'morally' theirs, people do come to believe it)."

Puzder, like Hayek and many other such predecessors, is yet another welfare statist attempting to "defend" capitalism as "serving" consumers in what he calls "economic democracy" (a leftist term). Starting from freedom the premise leads directly to welfare statism, which only differs in degree from full socialism, and which the ethical premise of altruistic egalitarian nihilism ultimately requires.

Puzder is a Pragmatist who defends "markets" to the extent they produce what he wants to fund his altruism. In this video he goes farther than his conservative counterparts of 50 years ago, in line with the increasing welfarism in practice over that period: He sanctions the severe welfare statism of European socialism, only stopping short of the next step of what he calls socialist "central planning" and "Venezuela".

"There are no socialist countries in western Europe", he tells us. "Most are just as capitalist as the United States. The only difference, and it's a big one, is that they offer more government benefits than the U.S. does. We can argue about the costs of these benefits and the point at which they reduce individual initiative, thus doing more harm than good. Scandinavians have been debating those questions for years.

"But only a free market capitalist economy can produce the wealth necessary to sustain all the supposedly fee stuff Europeans enjoy. To get the free stuff, after all, you have to create enough wealth to generate enough tax revenue to pay for everything the government gives away. Without capitalism, you're Venezuela."

That is not capitalism; it is Pragmatist obfuscation of welfare statism mixed with socialism fed by remnants of capitalism in the name of capitalism -- much farther along than his conservative counterparts employing the same "service defense" of capitalism 50 years ago -- as he pretends that it's all a "benefit" of "free stuff" fueled by a "market economy" under "capitalism". He is a living, contemporary example of what Ayn Rand called the obliteration of the concept "capitalism" with conservative anti-concepts.

His appeal to "benefits" and "doing more good" of altruistic welfare does not acknowledge the inevitable pressure group warfare, the loss of freedom, and the degrees of worsening economic stagnation under the progressively increasing controls and taxes of welfare statism morphing increasingly into full socialism. He only tolerates an "argument" over "costs" and the "point at which they reduce individual initiative" -- with no mention of why anyone should want to live under the stagnation or anywhere near such a "point".

In "Conservativism: An Obituary", Ayn Rand wrote, "Capitalism is based on individual rights--not on the sacrifice of the individual to the 'public good' of the collective. Capitalism and altruism are incompatible. It's one or the other. It's too late for compromises, for platitudes, and for aspirin tablets. There is no way to save capitalism—or freedom, or civilization, or America—except by intellectual surgery, that is: by destroying the source of the destruction, by rejecting the morality of altruism.

"If you want to fight for capitalism, there is only one type of argument that you should adopt, the only one that can ever win in a moral issue: the argument from self-esteem. This means: the argument from man's right to exist—from man's inalienable individual right to his own life."

Is my friend, the gay dog walker, or my girl friend of old with a previous abortion on “our side”?

Who erodes the arguments for “our side” more, me asserting religion is dogma, or your Conservative friends asserting homosexuality and premarital sex is evil?

“Our” failure in appealing to the masses is from conservative religious dogma, not fiscal freedom, and the left have latched on to the former to further their objectives on the latter.

Do not paint me with the brush of socialist totalitarians (arrogant left). It is religious intolerance that has alienated the majority, and allowed the left to co-opt fiscal freedom, business and capitalism as evil by association.

I guess "seems" to translate into power is what I meant to impress. No one listens to those without money, only to those that are "famous" usually with money. Some heads of large corporations seem to think they can control the world, tell people that they should think or do. But then again there are many more corporation heads that most of the population can not even name. I do know no one listens to anyone poor.
The same goes for politicians, most are not even known, in that case only the loud ones, the ones that make noise are known.

And that's interesting that Ozarks and Hillsdale are strictly religious, neither one of them ever impressed me that way. I view them both as educating in the direction of believing in the Constitution, economics, and government, how Congress works and why it doesn't, and all the other aspects of what the conservative side believes in. I've looked at many of their courses and even get some of their mailings, never saw anything religious about any of it. In any case I'll look back to see, but I never saw anything that I would consider religious about them.

Can’t agree with rejecting Hillsdale. They have never accepted federal $. There is value there .
As usual, we stand, burried in the filth. Hillsdale offers a shower and water in exchange for nothing, but you reject it, in favor of the unreachable castle and feast.

There is a day to depart from Hillsdale, if they maintain a religious tithe is due. That day is not today, and it poisons us none at all to wait and see.

Our Declaration of Independence would still be what it already is without the vague reference to a "creator": a principled political document recognizing the rights of the individual, not "just a piece of paper". The words on the paper represented the broadly accepted Enlightenment philosophy embracing rights of the individual in accordance with man's nature.

An inalienable natural right by our nature as human beings to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" here on earth is philosophical recognition, not submission to a "something higher than other men", and is not "secured" by any such thing. Nor did the secular government founded to implement the Declaration through limited government protecting the rights of the individual have anything to do with any religious higher being securing anything.

The founders had no such notion as a god handing down, let alone "securing", rights as commandments; they recognized rights by our nature as what we in fact are, however we were "created" (evolution was not known at the time). Enlightenment thinkers recognized that is is up to man to discover for himself through reason what those rights are by looking at the facts of our nature.

See Carl Becker's classic The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas, and Bernard Bailyn's equally classic The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution.

The country was not founded on religion and philosophical ideas are not "just paper" without it. Our rights can only be "secured" by a general philosophical acceptance of, and social organization implementing, the ideas of man's rights.

You would agree with faith and force if its practitioners were not hypocritical? An ethics of faith and sacrifice for another world is destructive by nature, and impossible to practice consistently if you want to live on earth.

Money does not "translate into power", it depends on what you are trying to buy and what kind of society you live in. Money is a medium of exchange that is used for and requires production. In corrupt societies where production and the rights of the individual are not respected, anything can be "bought", but money is not the cause of that. Reread Francisco's "money speech" in Atlas Shrugged: https://www.capitalismmagazine.com/20...

Ozarks and Hillsdale are stridently religious schools, not something that should be supported by those who support reason, rational egoism and capitalism, which those schools undermine.

Ayn Rand explained the inability of conservatives to defend capitalism and how they undermine it many times: "Conservativism: An Obituary" in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, and in numerous interviews and answers to questions, such as in Objectively Speaking: Ayn Rand Interviewed, edited by Podritske and Schwartz, and Ayn Rand Answers: The Best of Her Q&A, edited by Mayhew.

Most pertinent to the Puzder "defense" of capitalism in particular is her 1965 article "The Obliteration of Capitalism", also in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. Puzder is a welfare statist.

False foundations means philosophical, in ethics and epistemology. Every politics presupposes an ethics; faith and altruism contradict capitalism.