Recently, the head of the DOJ, Merrick Garland, has ordered the FBI to monitor alleged incidents of violence and intimidation. This is a move that is seen by many as an aggressive overreach on the part of the federal government into what should be local matters. This move is likely only to exacerbate the existing tensions between the left and the right. The left has over decades, and increasingly, been using higher education and the public school system as indoctrination centers.
Collectivism
LR Podcast, S2 E21: Democracy vs. Freedom
If there is one thing the Democrat Party has taught us is that democracy by itself does not equal freedom. A democratic society is not the same as a free society. Democracy only produces freedom if freedom is on the ballot.
LR Podcast S2E18: Where did it all go wrong?
1913 is when among other things, the federal income tax was initiated, among a host of other progressive measures that have been building upon one another until this day. 1913 is the year when American statism became a thing.
LR Podcast S2E12: Why is conservatism better? Pt 2
Perhaps the best commercial for American Conservatism are the anti-communist demonstrations currently in Cuba, where people have taken to the streets waving the American flag. They're not waving the EU flag, the BLM flag, or the Soviet flag, they're waving the American flag, knowing full well the ideals of liberty and freedom it embodies. Truly oppressed people recognize that the ideals held by American conservatives are intrinsically pro-freedom, anti-oppression.
LR Podcast S2E11: Why is conservatism better?
The left's notion that the ends justify the means vs the conservative notion that only just means create just ends.
LR Podcast, S2E10: Independence Day Message 2021
To hear it from some people, you’d think that America was a terrible place with a terrible history with few redeeming qualities. Some of their points are valid, but they do not give a balanced perspective on our nation. Our Founding Fathers were men of wisdom and courage who sacrificed much and were prepared to give, even more, even their lives if necessary for us to gain our independence.
LR Podcast S2E9: You be the judge.
We've all heard someone ask: “Who are you to judge me?” or some variant of that question. It's a defensive question usually asked by someone who reasonably expects to be judges harshly by their peers for some ethical or moral transgression. It's safe to say that someone secure in the notion that society or their peers would judge their actions favorably, is not going to pose this rhetorical question. A good retort to that question might be: “Who are you that you are above judgment?”
Ayn Rand on the Rights of Man
When we base rights on what is good for society, that begs the question: Who speaks for society? Throughout history, such people who claim to speak for society inevitably turn out to be tyrants. You have a few, even a single person, deciding what is good for the people. Rand thought that people ought to decide for themselves, based upon rational self-interest.
LR Podcast S2E8: Right on, Rand!
Ayn Rand saw collectivism in all its forms as an impediment to human rights. "The good of society" cannot be the basis of rights, since society is merely a collection of individuals, and so the only proper rights are individual rights. When we base rights on what is good for society, that begs the question: Who speaks for society? Throughout history, such people who claim to speak for society inevitably turn out to be tyrants. You have a few, even a single person, deciding what is good for the people. Rand thought that people ought to decide for themselves, based upon rational self-interest.
LR Podcast S2E7: Collectivist Debt
Ayn Rand explains how leaders with a collectivist mindset can justify such lusty sums for pet projects and public largess even though we are experiencing record inflation partly due to previous enormous spending. It comes from altruism, paired with a neurotic lack of self-esteem in a leader or among lawmakers that fuels the need for ever more spending on “the public good”. It is based upon the need to feel good, rather than actually doing good.
Liberty Relearned 