Hundreds of years ago, Rabbi Akiva said:
To be kind to the cruel is to be cruel to the kind.

2,500 years ago Confucius was on a lecture circuit and was asked:
Some say that kindness should be repaid with kindness, and unkindness also with kindness.
What do you say? The reply was:
Repay kindness with kindness. The response to unkindness should be Justice.

But what is Justice? Not mob rule demanding instant cruelty, no thoughtless giving of forgiveness. That which allows for education, knowledge of customs, law, and reality. Above all, using reason and thought.

These thoughts entirely consistent with Objectivism.

Ayn Rand said a long time ago that the Leftists knew exactly what they were fighting for, whereas, the Conservatives did not. The leftists were and are trying to implement Karl Marx's ten commandments viz.

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc.

The Manifesto of the Communist Party
i

I would argue that many conservatives lack conviction in their own principles. One must actually study the ends of one's ideology in order to obtain a conviction of it. Leftists find this quite easy because their ideology is about gaining and maintaining power over others and the methods of coercion both support and sustain that ideology. Conservatives (and libertarians) believe in individual choice and tolerance of that in others. Without coercion, they are left to persuasion to further their ideology.

Can those who believe in tolerance put their collective foot down and refuse to allow coercion? We shall see. I fear that this decision will come to a head very soon.

Thank you, the article expresses my opinion to a tee. It will go out to my email "right" list. We needn't tell them the plan. Not being a salesperson, the one thing I learned is, "Don't spill all your candy in the lobby".

I was (am) almost at the point of believing the only way to get the message across would be to handle this adversity like the Clinton Machine usually handles adversity, eliminate it. Then again Trump is still willing to take another shot at it. I can't even imagine another public figure that could do it.

Dr. Hurd has been a prominent writer and speaker within the Objectivist movement for a long time, so though I don't know if he's a member here at this particular website, he's been a Gulcher from the outset.

Something Rand and every other Objectivist has identified and has been hammering away at for decades is the absolutely crucial point that all political debate ultimately rests on one thing: Ethics. The reason is simple and logical: Philosophy - of which Politics is one branch - is a hierarchical structure, and Ethics precedes Politics within that hierarchy.

Philosopher Leonard Peikoff, in his 1993 talk "Health Care Is Not A Right," put it in clear terms: "So long as people believe that [a given position] is noble, there is no way to fight it. You cannot stop a noble plan - not if it really is noble. The only way you can defeat it is to unmask it, to show that it is the very opposite of noble." (Peikoff's talk is posted at YouTube and is something everybody should consider to be must-viewing, on that issue and a multitude of others: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wKZ1...

Rand reminded us over and over and over that the good - Reason; Individualism; Capitalism; Liberty - is morally good because it is 100% consistent with the metaphysical facts of reality - of the universe and of man within the universe. Conversely, the evil - Irrationality; Collectivism in its every variant; Serfdom - is morally evil because it is 100% at war against reality, against the metaphysical nature of the universe and of man within it.

She also reminded us, over and over and over again, that Reason, Individualism, Capitalism and Liberty only lose against Irrationality, Collectivism and Slavery by one means: Default. Because the would-be defenders of the good a.) do not understand the moral arguments for these political principles (or even that moral arguments are needed in the first place,) and b.) attempt instead to argue on the basis of craven pragmatism and utilitarianism: "Capitalism works better," etc.

Collectivism in its every form - socialism, fascism, racism, communism, egalitarianism, tribalism, etc - has failed every shabby grasp at validity it has ever attempted, in every area of philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, economics, and yes, even pragmatism and utilitarianism. And though it can be imposed on nations with characteristically-catastrophic results, it never will succeed in presenting a valid defense of itself.

There is literally no valid argument in favor of collectivism in any variant or in any issue.

But it continues its juggernaut-bulldoze because those who should be identifying its moral evil and absolutely kicking its arse on that basis, have defaulted on doing so. This must change, and Rand's work, along with that of the multitudes of intellectuals who have been directly influenced by her philosophy, is the instructional material we all must absorb and utilize.

As a general query: Has anybody here read yesterday's Congressional resolution condemning socialism? I'm happy that it got done, but I have the nagging suspicion that nowhere in its wording did it base that condemnation on the fact that socialism (like all collectivist forms,) is morally evil to its core. I hope I'm wrong, but I haven't had the time to plow through the actual text of it. Anybody know?
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I would like to be his mailing list.... however I don't do Leftist social media.

Conservatives remain rather quiet simply because those in power either delete, ban or put us in FB Jail when we do speak out. I dare you to try posting anything about the vaccines that goes against their narrative and see how quickly you get bounced.