This video, brought to my attention by Nancy Mace Jackson on Twitter, is interesting on a couple of levels. First, it’s apparently a course on conservative theory taught by Mallory Factor, who’s been in the news again recently.
Second, the guest speaker appearing before the class is Yaron Brook, director of the Ayn Rand Institute. Interesting guy. He’s introduced as having served in Israeli Intelligence. He has an accent I can’t quite place — he sounds vaguely like former USC President John Palms.
The ideas he’s talking about could hardly be more timely than now, when various strains of libertarianism, from Ron Paul to the Tea Party, are striving to seize control of the Republican Party.
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You might find the syllabus for this course interesting. It’s an impressive lineup of speakers. Kathryn Fenner may note that it’s sort of like the recent lineup of speakers at our Rotary, only a bit more academically highbrow:
CLASS SCHEDULE
January 18
Introduction to the Conservative Intellectual Tradition
Guest Lecturer: Publisher Alfred S. Regnery
January 25
Edmund Burke and the Origins of Modern Conservatism
Guest Lecturer: David Armstrong Norcross
February 1
The Conservative Tradition and the American Experiment
Guest Lecturer: Former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich
February 8
The Fragility of Ordered Liberty: Tocqueville and Conservative Conceptions of Liberty, Equality, and Community
Guest Lecturer: Political Commentator Michael Barone
February 15
New Deal Progressivism, the Jeffersonian Revival, and the Agrarian Tradition
Guest Lecturer: American Historian Burton W. Folsom, Jr.
February 22
The Emergence of Libertarianism
Guest Lecturer: Ayn Rand Institute Director Yaron Brook
February 29
The Reagan Revolution
Guest Lecturer: Former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese
March 7
William F. Buckley, Jr., Fusionism, and the Three-Legged Stool of Conservatism
Guest Lecturer: National Rifle Association President David A. Keene
March 14
The Cold War, Anti-Communism, and Neo-Conservatism
Guest Lecturer: Former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith
March 21
The End of Big Government as We Know It
Guest Lecturer: Former Reagan Economic Advisor Arthur Laffer
April 4
Cultural Conservatism and the Religious Right
Guest Lecturer: Political Activist Phyllis Schlafly
April 11
The Bush Doctrine, Compassionate Conservatism, and the War on Terror
Guest Lecturer: Former Secretary of Defense Donald Henry Rumsfeld
April 18
The Future of the Conservative Movement
Guest Lecturers: Republican Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and Former Christian Coalition Director Ralph Eugene Reed, Jr.
Oy!
I’ve been listening to this while doing other stuff… it just got to the good part, where we hear about why, in Ayn Rand’s view, altruism is a BAD thing… about 40 minutes into it…
Where’s the class on how to bend over and kiss Rush Limbaugh’s big, fat pimpled ass. For some inexplicable reason this crazy lunatic has taken control of the conservative movement. All Mitt Romney could do was say his remarks about Ms. Fluke were “inappropriate”. Speaker Boehner had a similar, bland rebuke of the thrice divorced, oxycotin junkie. Why don’t they just come out give Limbaugh the harsh tongue lashing he so richly deserves. The good news this whole contraception debacle is costing the GOP women voters in droves. Hopefully the men will catch on soon as well to the disaster that conservatism has become.
He does a good job or representing it, because it’s arguably true that Bill Gates benefited the world more, through his products, when he was making his billions than he is now that he’s giving much of it away. Arguably.
But it breaks down when he tries to maintain that anti-smoking laws are a bad idea.
Those of us who are sickened (immediately, not in the long term) simply had very few places we could go out before the local smoking ban. Many businesses wanted to go smokeless, but were afraid to do so unless they knew their competitors had to do the same. It was a situation in which individual choices by business owners didn’t work to produce smoke-free businesses in anything like the proportion of the population that doesn’t smoke, and doesn’t want to breathe it. Non-smokers who wanted to go out just had to put up with it. Now they don’t have to, in Columbia…
The liberal rebutal:
The myth of Ronald Reagan as a president who was tough on terrorism.
The mendacity of the neocon approach to Iraq
The Laffer curve really is a hoot
The 10 most hillarious claims about convervatism and sound fiscal policy
How the conservatives want to control your bedroom, body and recreational freedom.
How conservatives caused the last 5 recessions
The mainstream media’s cluelessness regarding the failure of modern conservatism
Unfair and Imbalanced: Talk Radio and Fox News
The whole anti-smoking movement was driven by liberal culture warriors who saw the tyranny to non-smokers and especially those with respiratory ailments in a world that catored to the “needs” of a few rude and addicted smokers. It took 50 years but the public world is largely free of the smoking menace. And no one, not even the smokers, is worse off for it. Here is a case where libertarians were clearly wrong. Will they ever admit it?
Does anyone know Mallory Factor’s qualifications for teaching a college course?
Meanwhile in Laurens County we have the GOP Purity Pledge. What this says is if you want to run for political office in Laurens County you must sign a pledge that says:
1. You will refrain from sex before marriage.
2. Your spouse must be of the opposite gender.
3. You must not have an extramarital affair, and
4. You cannot ever view pornography.
And this has made the national news. Good ole South Carolina. Always good for a laugh.
“Where’s the class on how to bend over and kiss Rush Limbaugh’s big, fat pimpled ass.”….bud
Gotta ask the question bud. How do you know Limbaugh has a pimpled ass? We can make an educated guess it is fat because of his weight, but pimpled? That requires pictures or first hand knowledge. 🙂
Well, he does show his ass a lot, so….
It is a well known fact that Limbaugh was declared ineligible for the draft because of some type of some type of cyst condition on his backside. His father had the same condition but served in the military during WW II.
“It is a well known fact that Limbaugh was declared ineligible for the draft because of some type of some type of cyst condition on his backside. His father had the same condition but served in the military during WW II.”…bud
Maybe in an alternate universe where an interest in the complexion of another person’s ass would this irrelevant fact become public knowledge and well known.
I think Kathryn has the right idea…”Well, he does show his ass a lot, so…”
🙂
I think Limbaugh had a pilonidal cyst, which is more serious than a pimple and not exactly s complexion issue.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilonidal_cyst
(Oik–did I just defend Rush Limbaugh?)
“pilonidal cyst”—-Must be something in the air today. Now that I have a bit of useless information, may as well have fun with it.
Could the fact that his butt history of “pilonidal cysts” which comes very close to “piling on” have something to do with a connection from his brain to his ass and when he experiences an outbreak he has a tendency to speak out of his lower region when he should be talking out of the upper?
There you have it, the answer to the riddle of why Rush is the way he is. He has a cyst on his ass and when it is flares up and painful, the discomfort makes him “pile on” and direct his anger at anyone in front of him at the time.
Conclusion – it ain’t his fault, its a medical condition.
The only reason that Ayn Rand is pissed is because L Ron Hubbard created Scientology before she did.
@ Bart–for which he must take a lot of prescription painkillers, don’t forget….