The Rational Animal 🤔 @theobjectivist

What's beyond sad is that grown men can live in the greatest country in history, a country that lifted men out of poverty and into wealth on a scale previously unimaginable, and still refuse to see cause and effect. Their corrupt moral code blinds them to such a degree that they would rather see men starving in bread lines than challenge their own understanding of mankind and the requirements of his survival. The wealth you demand be seized is the same kind you hold. You earned millions through your work, and no one has a right to confiscate it. The same principle protects the billionaire you target. The capital you want seized funds the factories, the payrolls, and the medicines you claim to care about. Confiscate it and you devour the source of everything you claim to want, while congratulating yourself on your compassion. Kids lack insurance in the states with the highest taxes and heaviest regulations in the nation. That is cause and effect too. You evade it by choice. Need is not a claim on another man's life. Production is not a crime to be punished. A moral code that treats creators wealth as loot holds poverty as its only possible result.

Mark Ruffalo @MarkRuffalo

23 hours ago

It’s beyond sad. It’s beyond disappointing; at this point, it’s disqualifying for anyone with ambitions for higher office as a Democrat, or a Republican, for that matter, to be fighting to keep billionaires from being taxed while kids don’t have health insurance and the cost of

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A car flew last night. An actual car, flipping in midair on cold gas thrusters and landing on its wheels. Elon Musk's companies built a sports car that does what science fiction promised for a century. The same man lands rockets on barges and builds the machines that carry our astronauts. That is what one free mind, and the thousands of minds he employs, can produce. Bernie Sanders says billionaires should not exist. He looks at the man who makes cars fly and concludes the problem to solve is that such men keep too much of what they create. He has spent five decades in government producing nothing, yet he claims the moral authority to dispose of the men who produce everything. A man who seeks unearned control over the lives and property of others is corrupt in the fullest meaning of the word, and that corruption runs deeper than any bribe. A flying car is what men do when they are free. A wealth tax is what politicians do to the men who built it. One of them needs the other to survive, and it isn't Musk.

Tesla @Tesla

a day ago

Real life, baby

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A belated happy 93rd birthday to Leonard Peikoff, born October 15, 1933. Thank you, Dr. Peikoff, for a lifetime spent fighting selfishly, in the full and proper meaning of that word, for the ideas that can save the world. You fought for your values, for the world you wanted to live in, and in doing so you armed every one of us who shares those values to fight for our own. OPAR sits on my desk, not my shelf. Your courses taught me how to think, not what to think, and that is a debt a man can only repay by using it. "To save the world is the simplest thing in the world. All one has to do is think." You showed us how. Happy birthday.

Eric @EP_Freely

a day ago

Happy birthday Leonard Peikoff.

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You have to meet these looters on moral grounds. Every program they run rests on the premise that your life belongs to anyone who needs it. Until you reject that premise out loud, they will keep winning the argument with your own morality. x.com/theobjectivist…

The Rational Animal 🤔 @theobjectivist

22 hours ago

Calling it cruel to stop forcing strangers to fund your choices is the moral premise of the whole welfare state, stated out loud. Nobody here is being robbed. The producers are being robbed slightly less than last year. And look at who the 27,000 are. ABAWD means able-bodied

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Calling it cruel to stop forcing strangers to fund your choices is the moral premise of the whole welfare state, stated out loud. Nobody here is being robbed. The producers are being robbed slightly less than last year. And look at who the 27,000 are. ABAWD means able-bodied adults without dependents. No children. No disability. The requirement is 20 hours a week of work, school, job training or volunteering. Volunteering counts. Three months of grace before anything stops. A free medical exemption if a health condition applies. The city flagged over 126,000 people in that category and 27,000 did not clear the bar. That is about 1.5 percent of the 1.8 million New Yorkers on SNAP, and the clock reset October 1, so they have three more months. Meanwhile the man calling this cruel is opening a city-run grocery store in Hunts Point, where the grocer down the block competes with a store funded out of his own tax bill. Washington is not turning its back on working Americans. Working Americans pay for every dollar of it. You have to meet these looters on moral grounds. Every program they run rests on the premise that your life belongs to anyone who needs it. Until you reject that premise out loud, they will keep winning the argument with your own morality.

Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @NYCMayor

22 hours ago

27,000 New Yorkers lost their SNAP benefits due to cruel cuts from the federal government. If you’re one of them, New York City is here to help.  As of October 1st, you can re-enroll for SNAP benefits. But there are new rules. 
Call 718-SNAP-NOW or visit nyc.gov/ACCESSHRA

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You've got the hierarchy exactly right. Ethics rests on epistemology and metaphysics, so altruism can't be fought at the ethics level alone. Its roots are faith over reason and the idea that this world and this life are second-rate. Rand traced the modern form to Kant: sever reason from reality and duty-for-duty's-sake fills the void. That's why arguing policy while leaving those roots standing goes nowhere.

The tragedy is that it needs any defense at all. The greatest achievement of the human mind since the printing press must plead for permission from men who distrust the mind as such. Walsh claims earlier jobs were changed while these are eliminated. Consider the blacksmith, the lamplighter, the switchboard operator, the typesetter, the men whose title was "computer." Their work did not change. It ceased to exist. In 1800 nine of ten Americans farmed. Today fewer than two in a hundred do. An entire mode of existence was abolished, and the result is the wealthiest nation in history. What Walsh calls a nightmare is the record of the last two centuries. "Takes the human out of the equation" reverses the facts. The human is the one who holds values. A machine values nothing, because it has no life to sustain. Everything it produces, it produces for a man who wanted it. If machines come to do most of the work, that is abundance: more of everything, for less, for everyone. To call abundance a catastrophe one must believe that a man's worth consists in being needed for toil. That belief is altruism, and it is the error beneath all the others.

Matt Walsh @MattWalshBlog

2 days ago

There are intelligent defenses of AI but this is just not one of them. This is nothing like the invention of the printing press or the automobile or the airplane or anything else. AI is not merely a faster and more efficient tool for humans to use (as was the case with the

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Census surveys have long shown that most poor American households have air conditioning, a car, TVs, and smartphones, and the average poor American has more living space than the average European. Capitalism did that, even the shackled remnant we have left. Poverty here means one big screen TV instead of three. The problem that needs attention is what the war on it built: a $40 trillion debt that will bankrupt America, and socialist policies growing in both parties that will put all of us in the poverty we spent trillions escaping. The whole approach runs on altruism, the belief that self-sacrifice is man’s highest virtue and duty, so the programs reward need and punish the people doing the producing, and then everyone wonders why the debt keeps growing. None of this persists from lack of attention. It persists because the attention takes the form of sacrifice instead of freedom. Men escape poverty the same way they always have, by working, producing, and trading in a country that protects their right to do so freely, and that country is vanishing more by the day. 🤔👇

Rock Chartrand @RockChartrand

3 days ago

“No one's paying attention” might be one of the most absurd claims ever made about poverty. Politicians have campaigned on it for generations. Governments have spent trillions fighting it. Entire bureaucracies, welfare programs, academic departments, charities, and political

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“No one's paying attention” might be one of the most absurd claims ever made about poverty. Politicians have campaigned on it for generations. Governments have spent trillions fighting it. Entire bureaucracies, welfare programs, academic departments, charities, and political movements exist because of it. Poverty has received extraordinary amounts of attention, money, and political power. Perhaps it's time to question whether the policies we've spent decades pursuing are actually solving the problem, rather than pretending nobody has bothered to notice it.

Marco Foster @MarcoFoster_

3 days ago

Michael Douglas: “The disparity of wealth is very very depressing” Joe Rogan: “It’s certainly frustrating that more people don’t have an opportunity to do better in this life and that no one’s paying attention to that. If you look at the country as a community, you would say

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Quote: "Russian forces indiscriminately bomb Ukraine’s cities, not because of Moscow’s lack of precision munitions but as a tactic. Its soldiers have massacred Ukrainian civilians. They deploy rape as a weapon of war."

Noah Rothman @NoahCRothman

3 days ago

The Trump Administration’s Outlook Toward Ukraine Is a Moral and Strategic Atrocity nationalreview.com/corner/the-tru…

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You're describing General License 135, and that part is right. Treasury authorized Russian-origin diesel sales to the global market through April 2027. But that's only half of what happened. Trump himself announced specific deliveries after his October 9 call with Putin. In his words, he struck a deal to obtain diesel. Over 300,000 tons immediately, 500,000 tons in November, 1 million after that, then 3 million more. His numbers, his announcement. If it's purely a market mechanism, someone should tell the president, because he's describing negotiated deliveries. And even as a sanctions relaxation, look at the timing. Ukraine knocked out nearly half of Russia's refining capacity. Russia has summer-grade diesel it desperately needs to offload before winter. Energy analysts called this a great benefit to Putin for exactly that reason. We opened the market at the precise moment Russia needed buyers most. Russia started lifting its own export restrictions the same day. So whatever label you prefer, the effect is identical. Russian energy revenue goes up. The war chest gets refilled. And the one source of pressure that was working gets undercut. You're right to question whether supplies will materialize. But that makes it worse. We handed Putin six months of sanctions relief for deliveries that exist, so far, only in a social media post.

Let's be clear about what just happened. Trump bought Putin's diesel. No concessions. No conditions. Just handed Russia a revenue stream to fund the war. Then he declared an "energy ceasefire." Next Russia bombed a power plant in Kharkiv hours later. Trump's response? "They agreed because I said they agreed." Saying it doesn't make it real. But Trump operates as if it does. His entire method is treating reality as something you can brand and negotiate. You can't brand a war. Bombs don't care about press conferences. Then overnight Ukraine's military satellite access got throttled with no warning. Their drone intercept capability against Russian strikes on civilians went dark. Musk confirmed the restrictions came from Trump and the U.S. military. Why? Because Ukraine has been too effective. They've knocked out nearly half of Russia's refining capacity through drone strikes. That is how you beat an aggressor. You hit their revenue. Trump's response is to punish Ukraine for it because it raises gas prices at home. This is the core problem with a leader who doesn't think in principles. He thinks in reactions. Poll numbers. Oil prices. News cycles. Every decision is a transaction aimed at the next approval rating, not at the actual objective. Putin understands this perfectly. He knows Trump is not measuring success by whether the threat is eliminated. Trump is measuring success by whether it looks like he's winning. Those are two completely different things. So Putin pockets every concession. The diesel deal gives Russia revenue. The pressure on Ukraine to stop refinery strikes gives Russia time to rebuild capacity. The satellite restrictions degrade Ukraine's ability to intercept Russian missiles aimed at civilians. And Putin gives nothing back. He violates the ceasefire within hours because he knows the cost is zero. Trump will just declare victory anyway. A man who is guided by crowd approval instead of identified principles will always reach for the deal before the job is done. He will call it the greatest deal in history. The cameras will roll. And the threat will survive, intact, waiting for the next news cycle to change the subject. That is not strategy. That is performance. And people die when you confuse the two. wsj.com/politics/polic… via @WSJ

He can see it. That's the sad part. The problem is how he thinks. To Trump, Putin isn't a threat to be stopped. He's just the guy on the other side of the table. Everything in his world is a deal. Doesn't matter who you're dealing with, only whether you can get them to yes. So when he looks at Putin, he doesn't see a man who bombs apartment buildings and breaks every agreement he signs. He sees a tough negotiator he can win over with the right offer. That's why the evidence never changes his approach. You can show him every broken ceasefire and every dead civilian. He'll still reach for the deal. Not because he can't see what Putin is, but because he's decided it doesn't matter.

Before you correct someone it is a good idea to fact check yourself first. This is not a one-time purchase. Trump's own announcement laid out a delivery schedule. Over 300,000 tons of diesel immediately. Another 500,000 tons in November. Then 1 million tons immediately after. Then an additional 3 million tons within a short period, tied to the condition of Russia's refineries. His numbers, his post, roughly 4.8 million tons total. On top of that schedule, Treasury issued General License 135 on October 9 authorizing transactions in Russian-origin diesel through April 2027. That is the first easing of diesel sanctions lasting longer than the standard 30-day window since the 2022 invasion. Russia began lifting its own diesel export restrictions the same day. Scheduled deliveries stretching months into the future under a six-month legal authorization, generating ongoing payments to Russia. That is the definition of a revenue stream.

Small correction first. $40 trillion is the debt, not the deficit but I assume that is what you meant. Senator, a family balances its checkbook with money it earned. Washington balances its books with money it took. Both parties keep adding to the debt because most voters believe need is a claim on someone else's paycheck. While that belief stands, Congress won't cut the six cents in the first place, because every cent has a constituency that calls it a right. Why argue the arithmetic and leave unchallenged the moral premise that keeps defeating it?

Same story, different companies. Warren has never met a merger she could sanction, except one: the merger of every choice in your life into the hands of men like her. Her record. Hellmann's and McCormick today. Kroger and Albertsons in 2022. JetBlue and Spirit the same year. Amazon and iRobot. Capital One and Discover. T-Mobile and Sprint in 2018. Every letter warned of higher prices for you. The ones that closed. T-Mobile and Sprint went through in 2020. In real terms, mobile charges fell about 8% in the three years before the deal and nearly 12% in the three years after. Capital One and Discover closed in May 2025. Your card still works. The ones she helped stop. Spirit lost its buyer, filed Chapter 11 in November 2024, filed again in August 2025, and spent December 2025 days from shutting down. iRobot lost its buyer and filed for bankruptcy, sold to its Chinese manufacturer. Albertsons lost its buyer and is closing Safeway stores, with closure costs nearly tripling in fiscal 2025. The pattern holds. When a merger closes, prices do what competition tells them. When she blocks one, the weaker company shrinks or dies and the shelf is less full. So relax about the hot sauce. If the deal closes, you can still buy Cholula. If she wins, you can still buy it, from the one company left standing, at whatever price survival sets. She will call that protection, and send you a fundraising letter about it.

Elizabeth Warren @SenWarren

4 days ago

Hellmann's mayo McCormick spices Cholula hot sauce Frank's RedHot What do these products have in common? One company could soon control them all. I have concerns that McCormick and Unilever's $45 billion merger could increase YOUR grocery prices.

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@GullsBrady @BiggiesAmerica You right that it is not sustainable. Too many want to bury their head in sand it seems.

This crook knows exactly why a billionaire pays the same as a man earning $184,500. He knows because he has voted for the cap and every patch on it for 35 years. Look at what the money buys. Pay the maximum for forty years and you collect about $4,200 a month at full retirement age. That is the ceiling, no matter how much was taken, because you own none of it. There is no account with your name on it, and Congress may change the terms whenever it likes. So call the arrangement by its name. It is a Ponzi scheme. Today's workers pay today's recipients. Nothing is invested. The trust fund holds Treasury IOUs, which means the government owes itself, and the only way to redeem one is to tax you a second time. Like every Ponzi, it survives on new entrants, and the birth rate stopped supplying them decades ago. Bernie has known this the whole time. Now the arithmetic he steps around. The 2026 Trustees Report puts the retirement fund's depletion in late 2032, six years from now, with an automatic 22 percent cut to every check. The federal debt crossed $40 trillion in August. Which is why the billionaires are suddenly needed in the pot. The scheme requires fresh money to pay the last round, and he has run out of workers to take it from. Then run his own numbers. Every billionaire in America, all 989 of them, holds about $8.4 trillion. Seize every dollar and you have covered a fifth of the debt, nothing of the deficit after that, and none of what is already owed to people who paid in. The fund still dies. And you would not be seizing dollars. That wealth is shares in Apple, Nvidia, Amazon, Berkshire, the same companies inside every 401(k) and pension in the country. Liquidate it and you crater the retirement savings of the people he claims to be rescuing, to buy a few years of a scheme that still collapses.

Sen. Bernie Sanders @SenSanders

3 days ago

Billionaires pay the same amount into Social Security as someone making $184,500. If we ended that absurdity & applied the payroll tax to all income above $250,000, Social Security would be solvent for 75 years & benefits would be expanded by $2,400. Let’s do it.

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They already print for it, just not the way you think. Start with the size. A trillion sounds huge until you put it next to the roughly $55 trillion already promised to people who paid in and have not collected a dime. That is about two cents on the dollar. Add the $40 trillion we already owe. A trillion buys a few months. Now what printing does. New dollars do not make new bread, gas, or houses. The money reaches some hands before others, so prices rise unevenly, and whoever spends it first buys at the old prices while everyone else catches the higher ones with the same paycheck. Nobody got richer. Wealth moved quietly. A 1965 dollar takes $10.63 today to match, and that gap does not come back. It also wrecks the signal rates are supposed to send. Cheap manufactured credit pulls money into projects that real savings would never have funded, and those come apart later. Here is the final kick in the rear. Your paycheck or SS check comes in dollars. Water down the dollar and the check buys less, which is a cut nobody had to vote for. The cost of living adjustment for SS arrives a year late and never catches up.

@RedLeg1 x.com/theobjectivist…

The Rational Animal 🤔 @theobjectivist

2 days ago

You're framing Ukraine as a disobedient client state. Let's check that against reality. Ukraine is a sovereign nation defending itself against an unprovoked invasion that has killed tens of thousands of its civilians. Russia invaded. Russia bombs power plants, apartment

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You're right, and this point doesn't get made enough. Europe's green energy policies hollowed out their energy independence and left them dependent on the very regime they now claim to oppose. They shut down nuclear plants, blocked fracking, restricted domestic production, and then acted shocked when Putin used the leverage they handed him. That is a self-inflicted strategic disaster decades in the making. And yes, European oil and gas purchases have funded Russia's war machine far more than anything else. That hypocrisy is real. Europe lectures about defending Ukraine while writing checks to Moscow every month. You've identified the deeper problem too. The dependency doesn't just fund Russia. It paralyzes Europe's will to act. They can't credibly threaten the regime their own economies are dependent on. A free and sovereign Europe would have the moral standing and the leverage to demand Russian withdrawal and mean it. Instead, decades of green ideology traded that away for windmills and Russian gas.

What message exactly? Spell it out. Because the only message Putin received is that he can violate a ceasefire within hours and get rewarded with a diesel contract. You're right that Europe has continued buying Russian energy throughout the war. That is a legitimate criticism. Europe's dependence on Russian gas has been a strategic failure and a moral compromise. But "Europe did something wrong too" is not a justification for the United States doing the same thing. It is an argument for pressuring Europe to stop, not for joining them. As for sending a message to the City of London, what message and to what end? If you mean pressuring London's role in commodities trading or European energy markets, explain the mechanism. How does buying a small amount of Russian diesel discipline London? And if the deal is as small as you say, then the only thing we purchased is the signal that the United States is willing to do business with the country currently bombing Ukrainian civilians. That is not leverage. That is a concession for nothing. There is also a 2022 law requiring Congressional consultation before importing Russian energy. Trump bypassed it. Members of his own party called the White House angry. What concrete concession has Putin made in response to any of this?