People love to bash Ayn Rand for her alleged personal failings, conveniently using it as a reason to ignore her ideas, since they have no credible objection to them. Instead they worship philosophers with far more dubious personal lives, although one might argue they lived closer to their ideal, as disgusting as it often turned out to be.

Quoted from www.solohq.com

-Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1788): This architect of the “noble savage” put all five of his children in a Paris orphanage. He also had an affair with a married woman twelve years his elder, and fled his sanctuary in Great Britain because of paranoid suspicions that David Hume was plotting against him.

-Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900): In his last ten years of life, this advocate of “The Will to Power” was completely insane and dependent on the care of his sister, Elizabeth. He seems to have been in error when he wrote, “that which does not kill you makes you stronger.”

-Martin Heidegger (1889-1976): When he wasn’t busy joining the Nazi Party and purging his own book of a dedication to his Jewish mentor, this seminal existentialist had an extra-marital affair with his doctoral student, Hannah Arendt. His post-war life was marked by a cowardly refusal to come to terms with the crimes of Nazi Germany. In an interview he had been promised would be published posthumously, Heidegger placed the blame for the Holocaust on technology.

-Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961): This well-known author is believed by many to have suffered from sexual insecurity—he called Ford Madox Ford impotent, and told Allen Tate that men only experience a fixed number of orgasms. He violated the Geneva Convention when he tossed 3 grenades into a cellar where SS officers were hiding. And his atrocious luck with a string of terrible injuries was only worsened by his own drinking and self-destructive behavior, culminating in his shotgun suicide in Ketchum, Idaho, after which he willed his Cuban estate to Fidel Castro.

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Another from SoloHQ, this time a poster commenting on relationships

"The reason is that we are not just collections of generic, abstract philosophical premises. We are not floating brains, and our bodies aren't just carrying cases for them. We are, each of us, something very unique and specific, and both mind and body. In both of those aspects, we are also individuated. We are not generic abstractions; we are concrete particulars, with many unique characteristics. When we define man as "a rational animal" we tend to focus on the adjective, not the noun, and the genus "man," not the specific "me."

Finding someone generically "good" or even "great" is not sufficient grounds for a particular attraction. The question is: good or great for whom? Moral character is important, but not enough. Intelligence is important, but not enough. Beauty is a plus, not enough, perhaps not even necessary. In fact, being all-around "wonderful" is not enough. I've met any number of wonderful women. I've been involved with several. But I've found very few wonderful women are wonderful for me.

...

Do you share the same temperament and moods? Are you an indoor or outdoor person? A day or night person? Optimist or pessimist? Is your mental style abstract or concrete or metaphorical? Are you quiet or verbal? Do you both like the same kinds of music? What kind of energy level do you both have? Are you fastidiously neat, or relaxed and casual? Do you share the same sense of humor? Are you both tactile and physically demonstrative, or physically withdrawn? Do you like to verbalize everything, or leave a lot to unspoken implications? Etc., etc

...

All of which is to say that relationships are built on a host of individuating, not just generic qualities. Think of gears meshing, or of the right key for the right lock.

And don't bother writing up a list of such particulars. As we evolve in life, the priorities we place on those things are always shifting and changing.

What's the relevance of all this here? Well, we were discussing the relevance of Rand's personal life; and our answer has to be based on the fact that we haven't a clue what two people really see in each other. I suppose one moral implication is that we should cut people a lot of slack about their particular romantic choices, and not bother to draw weighty philosophical or psychological inferences about them for their selections. Because attractions are so particular and unique, its virtually impossible to know the answer to the question, "What in the world does she/he see in her/him?" All we can know is that the partners must have touched each other on a profoundly personal, individual level that even the participants may not fully understand

that is, of course, only pertaining to more proper philosophical foundations for relationships, mutual sets of values, deep appreciation for each other's sense of life, etc. I find most relationships to be nowhere near as deep and as profound, mostly just excuses to keep people from having to deal with making a life of their own and to keep from getting bored with thier own lives. - matus

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Excerpt from Rummel’s blog

On the UN treatment of Refugees

One case that is particularly despicable is that during the mass flight of over a million Vietnamese who risked their lives on the ocean often in overcrowded, rickety boats to escape the communization of South Vietnam or persecution of Sino-Vietnamese, hundreds of thousands died or were murdered by pirates before reaching land (my figure is 500,000 dead). The UN organized a relief and resettlement program in conjunction with many countries, including the U.S., which saved hundreds of thousands of lives, and for that we should be grateful. But, when some countries began to turn the refugees away, to tow or push starving Vietnamese in their often unseaworthy boats back into the ocean to almost certain death, as did Malaysia beginning in 1978 and ultimately causing an estimated 70,000 Vietnamese to deaths, the UN did nothing more than assert that all Vietnamese Boat People had de facto refugee status and encourage multilateral discussion among concerned nations. (Before a death toll like 70,000 flits through your mind as just a statistic, consider that this far exceeds the American combat killed in the Vietnam War of 47,369, in the Korean War of 33,651, in World War I of 53,513, and is slightly under the Civil War Confederate combat dead of 74,524 – yet this estimated 70,000 dead Vietnamese refugees Malaysia killed is a wave of the hand statistic that historians will never include in major world histories, and that’s the way the UN treated it. We should not.)

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-- April 30th --- The 30th anniversary of the fall of Saigon and the brutal communist enslavement of the people of South Vietnam.

VIETNAM FREEDOM MARCH ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

P.O. Box 2213, Saratoga, CA 95070 – Tel/Fax: (408) 904-4617

6433 Northannna Dr., Springfield, VA 22150 – Tel/Fax: (877) 592-4140

Email: [email protected]

http://www.vnfreedom.org

http://www.april30.org/

http://www.vatv.org/tv/article.php?sid=281

News Release

June 9, 2004

VIETNAM FREEDOM MARCH:

REMEMBERING THE PAST SHAPING THE FUTURE

APRIL 30, 2005 WASHINGTON DC

April 30, 2005 marks the thirtieth year that the entire country of Vietnam has been under the repressive control of the Vietnamese Communist Party. In the last three decades the country has gone through numerous changes, but one thing has stayed the same: Vietnam remains an underdeveloped country lacking basic human freedoms.

In contrast, over the last 30 years, Vietnamese refugees of communism have rebuilt their lives and contributed to their adopted countries in diverse fields: business, science, arts, education, and even national defense. The empowerment of the Vietnamese community in America can be seen through its growing political voice. In many localities, Vietnamese

American candidates have run for and won political office. Others have been appointed to important positions in government.

Over the last 30 years, the Socialist Republic Vietnam has been repeatedly censured by the international community for its restrictions on human rights and repression of peaceful voices. Many Congressional resolutions have addressed these abuses. Each year the State Department details how Vietnam lacks democracy, human rights, and religious freedoms. The attention paid to the conditions in Vietnam has come in no small part from the relentless advocacy of the Vietnamese American community.

An important symbol for Vietnamese everywhere is the Freedom and Heritage Flag. In the last year, over 50 states, cities, and municipalities in the US have recognized this enduring symbol. This achievement underscores the deep respect for freedom that is the heritage of Vietnamese Americans.

To mark the efforts to bring democracy and freedom to Vietnam through the last thirty years, the Vietnamese American Public Affairs Committee (VPAC), National Congress of Vietnamese Americans (NCVA), and Len Duong International Vietnamese Youth Network in conjunction with other Vietnamese organizations and communities will organize a Vietnam Freedom March: Remembering the Past Shaping the Future in Washington, DC on April 30, 2005.

The daylong program will consist of a human rights rally before the US Capitol, remembrance ceremony at the Vietnam Veterans Wall Memorial, outdoor concert featuring Vietnamese folk music, and special cultural activities and exhibitions on the history of the

Vietnamese community in America.

Further details will be available in the near future. For additional information on this historic event, please email us at: [email protected].

On behalf of the Organizing Committee:

Binh Vo, Vietnamese American Public Affairs Committee

Hung Nguyen, National Congress of Vietnamese Americans

Huy Phan, Len Duong International Vietnamese Youth Network

http://www.vpac-usa.org/

http://www.vnfreedom.org/freedom-march.html

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- Matus