Show 049 was an excellent discussion about the coming U.S. presidential election. Arthur explained his views starting with this question: Which party will do the least damage to Objectivist ideals? (I will try to summarize what he said, but please listen to the show for his own words.)
The Republicans essentially stand for religion. They consistently try to mix faith with government, of which even small amounts can be disastrous, and will lead to a theocracy. Furthermore, their religious altruistic beliefs conflict with the self-interest morality necessitated by capitalism, which they claim to defend. Because of this, they’re misrepresenting capitalism, making it disreputable and therefore harder to realize.
The Democrats stand for a disintegrated attempt at socialism (or pieces of it). But since the fall of the Soviet Union, communism and socialism are no longer the threat they once were. It has been demonstrated that such systems are horrendous. Moreover, since the Democrats’ views are disintegrated, they can not achieve long term success. So, in order to give Objectivism time, it makes the most sense to throw out the bigger threat, the Religious Right, and vote for the Democrats.
Many Objectivists will bring up a third option. What about the Libertarians? The Libertarians say they stand for liberty, but they have an anti-philosophical approach. Their guiding “principle” is the non-initiation of force, but without a proper underlying philosophy, no one can say what initiating force consists of. Politics is a derivative of ethics and must be treated as such. Otherwise, capitalism will continue to be misrepresented, which is immensely destructive. (For those interested, there is also a discussion of Ron Paul on the show.)
It was a great show and I highly recommend you listen to it. You may want to read Diana Hsieh’s post on the election as well.
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