Meeting, Oct. 13th

There is a meeting tonight (Oct. 13th) in Boardroom 1 on the 6th floor of Palmer Commons. We will be discussing the last third of ‘the Objectivist Ethics’.

Yaron Brook @ U of M Oct. 6th

U of M Students of Objectivism is proud to announce that Dr. Yaron Brook will be giving his lecture entitled ‘Capitalism Without Guilt’ on Oct. 6th in the Chemistry building, room 1640 at 7:00pm.

“Virtually everyone today regards the financial crisis as a failure of the free market. In this talk, Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, will argue that in fact it is the un-free market that has failed. It was not capitalism that held interest rates below the rate of inflation, spurring massive amounts of borrowing and a housing boom. It was not capitalism that gave us Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which promoted subprime lending and helped fuel the boom. It was not capitalism that gave us deposit insurance and the “too big to fail” doctrine, which encouraged risky financial practices. These, and many anti-capitalist measures like them, Dr. Brook will argue, laid the groundwork for the financial crisis. The only cure, according to Dr. Brook, is to set the market free. But to do that, Americans must embrace capitalism as a moral system–one that should be defended without guilt.”

Seating is on a first come first serve basis, so you may want to get there early! For those unfamiliar with the campus: http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/8831/ccamp.jpg

The Facebook event is located here: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/event.php?eid=138329093375&ref=mf

Mass Meeting

Our mass meeting for the fall semester will take place tomorrow, Sept, 17th, at 7:00pm in the Michigan league on the third floor, room A. Attendance is not mandatory for club membership. Anyone’s welcome to come to any meeting. The entire meeting schedule for fall semester will be announced shortly.

Hope everyone had a great summer!

Enough is enough!

Perhaps you have heard about the developing scandal concerning Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis and the deal to buy Merrill Lynch. The previous Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke threatened Mr. Lewis in order to intimidate him into continuing the unprofitable acquisition of Merill Lynch. The Wall Street Journal reported on the government’s use of force on April 28th. A mere four days later, another instance of government intimidation came to light. A lawyer representing Chrysler bondholders says that one of his “clients was directly threatened by the White House and in essence compelled to withdraw its opposition to the deal under the threat that the full force of the White House Press Corps would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight. “

Such barefaced examples of the government initiating force on innocent citizens makes one wonder when (if) Americans are going to start sticking up for their individual rights. Samuel L. Jackson said it best in Snakes on a Plane: “Enough is enough!“

Last Official Meeting!

Wednesday, April 15th will be the Students of Objectivism’s final meeting for the 2009 fall semester. We will meet at 7:00 pm in the Blagdon room on the first floor of the league. A few things we can do Wednesday:

• Discuss if/how we should consolidate the library so that the club can get more use out of it. Tori just received another generous donation of books!
• Watch “Bridging the ‘Is-Ought’ Gap: How to Derive Morality from Facts,” a lecture + Q/A by Harry Binswanger
• Run through Peikoff’s latest podcast
• Decide the direction of the club for next year

See you there.

Meeting April 1st

I hope everyone had a good Edison Hour. I know I did!

Our next meeting is Wednesday April 1st at 7:00 pm in Blagdon room of the Michigan League. Unfortunately, a few of us have to leave at 9:00 in order to attend a meeting with some other like minded groups.

Hopefully this leaves us enough time to watch one of the lectures that just arrived in the mail from ARI. I just received “The Problem of Universals: Failed Attempts and Ayn Rand’s Solution,” by Gary Hull and “Bridging the ‘Is’-'Ought’ Gap: How to Derive Morality From Facts,” by Harry Binswanger.
See you on Wednesday!

Wednesday, March 18th

The next meeting is this Wednesday, March 18th at 7:00 pm. We are meeting in the usual room (1st-Blagdon in the Michigan League). On the agenda:

• ITOE chapters 2+3

• Edison Hour

-How to advertise more. Is there any sort of event we can put on in the diag? Giant flood lights would be awesome!

• Library status

-Doner Mark Hogan has graciously given UMSO several new books which are currently in Tori’s possession. This is a good time to consolidate our library and take inventory.

• Order a video

-ARI has a great lending program for campus clubs. If there are any videos we are interested in renting, we should put in an order soon to ensure we receive it before the end of the year.

• General discussion

-Current events, Peikoff’s podcasts, and anything else I’ve forgotten.

Meeting Tomorrow

We will be having a meeting tomorrow (March 4th) at 7:00 pm in the Blagdon room on the first floor of the Michigan League. Andrew has provided a quick list of discussion topics for tomorrow:

• ITOE Study Group
  • I was supposed to develop a study guide and questions to coincide with the first two chapters of ITOE. I don’t have anything to send out to the group, but I’d like to put something more formal together tonight (though there’s only a 50% chance of this as I might be at work kind of late).
• Further the club’s agenda and purpose
  • This continues to be open ended, but I am particularly interested in seeing us organize and take on more intellectual activism. Some ideas that popped into my head are:
    • Organizing a pro-man alternative to Earth Hour - http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2009/03/ann_arbor_leaders_embrace_eart.html
    • Writing another op-ed to (hopefully) be posted within the next two weeks
      • If people are interested in writing, I’d also like to push hard for more posts to our blog
    • An Atlas Shrugged Seminar? This is an idea that popped into my head after seeing the article Adam posted to the Twitter feed - http://twitter.com/umso/status/1259560934
    • Etc., etc.

‘The Perils of Environmentalism’ Published in The Michigan Daily

Check out Adam’s viewpoint article published in The Michigan Daily.

The environmental movement’s contempt for man can be traced back to its philosophical underpinnings. Environmentalists subscribe to the idea that the environment has intrinsic value. In other words, they believe that nature is automatically valued, with or without the existence of man. This is precisely why environmentalists oppose mankind’s destruction of wetlands but not the natural destruction of wetlands. It’s also why they oppose the building of a manmade dam but not a dam built by a beaver. Mankind’s disturbance of the inherent “goodness” of nature is seen as wrong and, ultimately, as immoral.

Viewpoint: The perils of environmentalism

Follow UMSO on Twitter!

You can follow UMSO on Twitter via twitter.com/umso. There you can find meeting announcements, activism links, and miscellaneous 140 character tidbits.