I had to top Dyl, who found the Molyneux letter from 2003.

This is from 1987!!!!

Molyneux would have been around 21 or so, and his entire future as failed dancer, failed actor, failed playwright, failed novelist, and failed software entrepreneur still lay before him.

He wrote a letter to the editor of Pro Tem, a student newspaper at York University in Toronto. The best part is the jingoist last paragraph. Don't forget to salute the flag while you read it.

Of course, it's completely unfair to criticize 42-year-old Molyneux for not holding onto the political views of his youth. (It actually holds out hope that his current acolytes will one day see the light and move on from him!) This is just for fun.

The only reason I include the entire letter instead of just the last paragraph is that it is so interesting to see how little his style has changed. The same passion, the same extreme language, the same absolute certainty--it really doesn't matter what he's arguing for, it always sounds good.

All except for that party analogy he trots out in the fourth paragraph. I really don't get that.

Enjoy.

-------------------------------

Pro Tem - Vol. 26 (1986-1987)

Volume 26
No.8
January 22, 1987


What do you think?


To the editor:

North America and the Returning Russians- Pride or Guilt?

While at Queens last weekend, I casually opened a campus newspaper, killing time while waiting for a friend. Flipping through the innocuous articles about campus news, album reviews and upcoming events, I chanced upon an article called "Liberty - Is Freedom Enough?", written by a political science student at Queens. I must admit that I was made more than a little uneasy by the title but, bracing myself for the worst, I plunged in.

The worst is what I got. In one of the shoddiest pieces of ambiguous writing I have ever seen, McBride jumped from unproven assumptions to outright ignorance in one fluid step. His essay attempted to deal with a subject that you have probably heard of and, if you did, raised some uneasy questions in your mind. I shall attempt to answer them.

Recently, 150 Soviet émigrés left North America to return to Russia, claiming that North America was rife with 'commercialism' and had a 'high crime rate'. The article I read at Queens then jumped to the conclusion (which some of you may have done as well) that something was wrong with our system of democratic capitalism. Well, as to whether our society can be improved, that is open to wide debate. But as to whether we are to be judged by people who prefer slavery to freedom, that is an eminently answerable question. The first step to the answer is to remember that thousands of Russians love it here and wouldn't return to Soviet dictatorship at the point of a gun.

Imagine this: You are famous for throwing fabulous parties, and one weekend you decide to try something new. You invite several hundred poverty-stricken people over to your mansion for a night of festivities. The evening goes splendidly, and almost everyone has a good time. However. a few people leave early, turning their back on your offer of hospitality and your surroundings and return to the ghetto. Are you then to assume that something was wrong with your party? Of course not. Some people simply cannot handle freedom and the responsibility it entails. Does this damn our system? No - the decision to return to a despotic government reveals far more about those who make it than the free society they leave behind.

Let us for a moment take a closer look at the reasons these Soviets offered for leaving. First there was 'commercialism'. By 'commercialism', we must assume that they refer to the advertisements which pay for the majority of our information and media transmissions. Remembering that the majority of the goods and services we enjoy (and a lot of the food) are unavailable to the average Russian, this is a revealing statement. What these emigrees are saying is that they were disoriented by being faced by many choices of goods where none existed before. This is understandable, but whose system does this indict - the North American or the Russian?

The other complaint raised was the 'level of crime' in the West. This is a real problem, of course, but we must not forget that our government is dedicated to relieving crime, whereas the Soviet government is responsible for the majority of it. The Kremlin is responsible for the murder of over 20 million of its own people since its inception. Try to find comparable murder statistics in any Western country! As any student of history will tell you, governments have been responsible for the vast majority of the ghastly atrocities in human history. Stacking the crime rate of western criminals against that of the communist governments is a ridiculous premise.

It has become fashionable recently to degrade our own system of democratic capitalism by unthinkingly accepting any and all criticism of it. Obviously we should not be blind to our own faults, but we cannot cower in our cultural corner, guiltily open to any beatings which the opinions of sundry dictators may choose to inflict on us. We should remember that our economic and political system is the beautiful result of five hundred years of liberal political philosophy--the most just and humane system of government in the history of Man. We have objective human rights, everyone is equal under the law, and our governments exist for us, not us for them. Let us keep this and more in mind while listening to criticism from those who grew up under a government with oceans of their blood on its hands.

Stefan Molyneux

Interesting, perhaps there is hope for growth and change.

Though, "the blood on it's hands" shtick is as fresh as ever LOL.

I think he would actually stand by most of what he wrote there...

Sounds like a happy Objectivist... Not really much to argue with there.

That reminds me of myself. I wrote my final English paper on how a lot of surveillance is needed for a secure United States.

Those were good times. Good, ignorant times.

I wonder if I'll grow to be 42 and learn to rapid-fire condemn and cut off from any and all people who believed the same misguided things that I believed. No, I think I'll be glad that no one did that to me!

Heh, and another guy did a paper on how economic sanctions are awesome. Thank goodness I didn't let him corrupt me!

Jesus, I thought he was an objectivist from his teens on. 'Objective Human rights', 'government existing for us, not for themselves'?

'how little his style has changed. The
same passion, the same extreme language, the same absolute
certainty--it really doesn't matter what he's arguing for, it always
sounds good.'
Very true, I had the same impression when reading this and when reading his letter to the editor on Iraq, and I have wondered for quite some time what he was like in debating the pro-Iraq war case, how he defended his position vis-a-vis anti-war people and how confident he was throughout

QuestEon, how the hell did you find this?

Conrad,

My personal experience (with myself, and with others) is that we are who we are who we are. I am, aside from a few scars and such, the same person now that I was as a small child. So your apparent surprise is not at all a surprise to me.

- NonE (trolling for the truth, getting damned few nibbles)

I don't think he was a failed software entrepreneur. if anything, he was quite successful. And the movie that he wrote the screenplay for I think won some prizes and/or is broadcast on Canadian tv at times.