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Feel free to join my tolfa.us group on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/tolfa/
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Feel free to join my tolfa.us group on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/tolfa/
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You are right on the money. I chose to ignore the fallacies and instead replied with reason.

Feel free to join my tolfa.us group on Facebook:

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I scored an 86 and will give it a shot. Let's see what happens.

And in the real world, Ayn Rand's essay has been thoroughly denounced and demolished by the metastasizing growth of political power over every minute detail of your life.

Don't get me wrong, I am a great admirer of Ms. Rand and her work, but that does not render me incapable of questioning her or of independent thought.

How is giving a monopoly on the use of violence to the sociopaths who operate under color of government working for you and the rest of us around the world? Remember, there is no such living entity as "the government". That is just a legal fiction to give a fig leaf to politicians.

They are anarchists who combine stealing Ayn Rand's ideas with contradicting them. It is not new and was thoroughly denounced and demolished in Ayn Rand's essay on the nature of government.

Anarchism means no government not "non-aggression". So-called "free market anarchists" or "anarcho capitalists", a few of which have been floating around for decades and which is what this "freedom academy" website promotes. They claim to want to protect our rights by throwing the use of force onto an open "market", which is preposterous and does not make "non-agression" "fundamental".

Ayn Rand emphatically denounced it, regardless of its form or excuse. It is not what Atlas Shrugged was about, let alone promoted, and has nothing to do with the AS movie. Limited government is not an "oxymoron" other than in the floating abstractions and imagination of anarchists.

Protection from anarchists? Now you've got me stumped with that one. Anarchism's entire foundation is in the non-aggression principle. What's to protect from?

Maybe not collectivist, but statism most certainly. "Limited government" is an oxymoron. How is that limited government in Mordor-on-the-Potomac working out for you?

> What if you considered it a rational conclusion [...] < You are correct. We are all self governing, self limiting creatures without the need to resort to aggression.

In this day and age, voluntary arbitration is a far more likely scenario for conflict resolution.

While I am not the original author of tolfa.us its principal designer is an acquaintance of mine with whom I am in contact periodically. I have been mentoring tolfa.us students since 2006 and also maintain a tolfa.us discussion group on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/tolfa/

Awesome! Thank you for the post and explanation about the course. I actually took a look at the site yesterday because someone mentioned it in a comment on another post (perhaps you?), but I'm a lifelong Objectivist who has recently seen the wisdom of anarchy, and I was hesitant because I suspected the course merely advocated the same old arguments for minarchy. So thanks for getting me to take another look.

There is no such contradiction in Ayn Rand's work. A limited government protecting the rights of the individual, which includes protection from anarchists, is not 'collectivist statism'. That is not what either statism or collectivism mean.

Where there are no absolute standards and only opinions prevail, trial by combat settles things, as in the Middle Ages.

Therein lies the grand contradiction in Rand's work. How can you be against "collectivist statism" and remain in favor of "government"?

Maphesdus is an eclectic, self proclaimed so-called "left libertarian" who falsely accuses Ayn Rand as "anarchist" for opposing collectivist statism such leftists deem to be "essential" to their notion of government.

As for the website, it is in fact a 'free market anarchist' site, partly using Ayn Rand's ideas and partly contradicting them, as you can see throughout. This is not a matter of subjective "kinda impressions" employed by the mentally sloppy. One sample explicitly showing the anarchism: "'couldn't we just limit government, instead of doing away with it altogether?' The answer is NO." [emphasis in original]

"Left libertarian" and "free market anarchism" is a false alternative.

Forgive me for asking questions which may seem trivial to you, but he devil is in the details, as the saying goes. :)

My understanding of the word "government" is that in the broader sense it denotes a particular philosophical concept (or idea if you prefer), i.e. is not a living creature capable of independent thought and action.

In the narrower sense I understand "government" to describe a legal fiction (once again not a living creature) used to give certain people monopoly power to make "laws", lay down other rules of conduct and the power to enforce them.

Am I correct in this?

Define anarchy please?

it's pretty interesting. I went through one section.