Instagram takes down Atlas Society's page

Atlas Society: Instagram Removed Our Page | The Daily Caller - Eric Lieberman:

October 21, 2017 - "Libertarian nonprofit The Atlas Society (TAS) says its Instagram page, which it used to post political content and promote its work, was taken down roughly a month ago with little to no explanation....

"In an attempt to get its account back, ... The Atlas Society reached out to Instagram in early September. The organization’s CEO, Jennifer Grossman, said communications with Instagram inexplicably ended in an abrupt fashion after some confusion of the proper username for the account ensued.

"The Daily Caller News Foundation spoke to several representatives at both Instagram and Facebook, which purchased the other social media platform for $1 billion, to get to the bottom of the situation. Following a great deal of back-and-forth, including providing evidence that their account existed, an Instagram official told TheDCNF that TAS’s account was deleted by an administrator of the official '@atlassociety' account some time around three years ago.

"Utterly perplexed by the information relayed to them, Grossman and her small staff provided TheDCNF with files that prove the account existed within the past three years.... TheDCNF then transferred the evidence to an Instagram employee, who has said multiple times after several inquiries that they plan on investigating, and subsequently responding.

"TAS’s Instagram account at time of publication is still down and unavailable....

"Grossman said she is ready to take whatever means necessary to get her Instagram account back, including legal recourse. 'If we can’t get answers by engaging in the routes that Instagram itself advertises as being the recourse for consumers, then we will try to get answers through the discovery process,' she said. 'We’ve suffered significant economic damage by being denied access to the area where we do business. We’re in the idea business, and this is our marketplace.'

"Prior to leading TAS, Grossman ... worked as education policy director for the libertarian-leaning think tank Cato Institute and a presidential speechwriter in the White House during the George H.W. Bush administration. She also served as the senior vice president for Dole Food Company, a powerful agriculture corporation, for roughly 10 years.

"'I’m a business person, I spent most of my career in companies where you take your products to market — via roads, rivers, rails, etc. Well, Instagram is the road by which we were conveying our products — memes that communicated our particular (and granted, not always popular) point of view,' she explained. 'Now we’re denied access to that road — and therefore to our consumers.'"

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/21/exclusive-libertarian-org-ready-to-sue-instagram-for-allegedly-removing-its-account/
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The morality of rule-breaking

Rule-Breaking is Necessary and Moral - Foundation for Economic Education - Working for a free and prosperous world - David Kelley, Atlas Society:

September 3, 2017 - "By 'rules' I mean self-contained prescriptions about concrete actions or situations, telling you what to do or how to do it. Fasten your seat belt. Don't smoke in elevators. Don't have sex on the first date. Don't drive over the speed limit. Don't hit below the belt. For many rules, there is a rationale provided by some broader principle. But when rules take the place of principles, as is happening more and more often today,... don't let them get in your way....

"Large regions of social life that ought to be governed – and to a large extent used to be governed – by principles of courtesy, justice, and mutual respect have now been bureaucratized by rules. Movie theaters find it necessary to inform their patrons that talking during the movie is forbidden. Interactions between men and women in the workplace are now regulated by sexual harassment rules that attempt to replace the principle of respect and the exercise of judgment....

"Because they are so concrete, no set of rules could possibly cover every situation and action to which the corresponding principle applies. This defect is particularly serious in ethics, the field that provides the broadest and most fundamental level of guidance for human action.

"The advantage of principles is the advantage of concepts: They unite an open-ended number of particular cases under a single abstraction. Of course we pay a price for this ... one has to apply a principle to a particular case by the exercise of judgment, taking account of the specific facts about the context.... But this points to a second defect of rules....

"Rules are formulated for specific contexts, but they never fully specify the nature or limitations of that context. As a result, rules invariably have exceptions and they often conflict with each other. Someone trying to follow the rules without the benefit of broader principles will have no way to determine when he is faced with an exception, or how to resolve a conflict.... The exercise of judgment cannot be eliminated from human life, and the attempt to do so by erecting a network of rules has destructive consequences in public as well as private affairs.

"There is a final defect that rules have in virtue of their concreteness. It is the most serious defect of all, and ... most pronounced in the realm of ethics: Unless rules are anchored in principles, they cannot be rationally justified.... They can be accepted only on faith or authority – i.e., as arbitrary edicts....

"In social contexts, rules laid down by an authority are sometimes necessary to prevent conflicts among people.... But even in this context, rules have all the defects we discussed: they cannot cover every situation, they have exceptions, and if they are detached from rational principles they are an arbitrary expression of will.... Rules that are arbitrary or issued chiefly as a means of asserting authority invite rule-breaking by those independent enough to bridle at subjection to another's will....

"We do need objective standards. But objectivity requires principles, not rules. The choice is to be principled, acting on one's own understanding of reality, or to be ruled – by an explicit authority or by the cramped and encrusted dictates of tradition. For anyone who values his own life and his own autonomy, that's an easy choice."

Read more: https://fee.org/articles/rule-breaking-is-necessary-and-moral/?utm_medium=push&utm_source=push_notification
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Dunn's Foundation gives libertarians $10M/year

This Foundation Is a Stalwart Backer of Libertarian Policy. Have You Heard of It? — Inside Philanthropy - Philip Rojc:

June 2, 2016 - "Most of the time, it’s hard to pick up on a foundation’s funding philosophy from its name alone. Dunn’s Foundation for the Advancement of Right Thinking makes it easier than most.... Founded in 1994, Dunn’s Foundation ... isn’t the oldest or most well-known funder around, but its low profile belies grantmaking of about $10 million a year, money that goes a long way in the think tank world.

"Dunn’s Foundation is devotedly libertarian in its outlook. While the foundation maintains no website or social media presence, public tax documents reveal a twofold purpose: to advocate for free enterprise and market capitalism, and to 'reduce the impact of the use or threat of force by coercive organizations (both public and private) against the people of America and the world, principally through education.'

"Since the year 2000, Dunn’s Foundation has provided major and ongoing funding to some of the biggest names in libertarianism like the Cato Institute, the Reason Foundation, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the Atlas Society. Dunn’s persistent support for the Marijuana Policy Project cements the foundation’s libertarian status....

"Another feature of Dunn’s grantmaking is its direct support for several libertarian public interest law firms. Some highlights: the Institute for Justice ($5,910,000 between 2002 and 2013), the Pacific Legal Foundation ($3,713,000), and the Landmark Legal Foundation ($2,340,000)....

"A theoretical physics Ph.D., Dunn left the sciences for finance in 1974, establishing what is now Dunn Capital Management, LLC. According to the firm’s website, Dunn was an early pioneer of quant trading in commodity futures, applying then-new computer technology to manage financial portfolios.... Dunn ...  is a Reason Foundation trustee and sits on the board of the Cato Institute, both major recipients of his money....

"Dunn is said to maintain strict control over his foundation’s grantmaking. Despite assets of around $130 million, Dunn’s Foundation has a small, tight-knit board of trustees and few apparent staff. In addition to Dunn himself, officers include Dunn’s wife Rebecca Walter Dunn, Dunn Capital general counsel David Dreyer, and Thomas A. Beach, who is also current chairman of the Reason Foundation....

In addition to the grantees mentioned above, others include the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, Americans for Limited Government, Chapman University, the Heartland Institute, and the Institute for Humane Studies.... The foundation has also given around $4 million over the past decade to the Property and Environment Research Center, a proponent of free market solutions to environmental problems and a critic of the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts."

Read more: http://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2016/6/2/this-foundation-is-a-stalwart-backer-of-libertarian-policy-h.html
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Jennifer Grossman is new CEO of Atlas Society

The Atlas Society Welcomes Jennifer Anju Grossman as its New CEO, Effective March 1st - Sherrie Gossett, Atlas Society:

March 3, 2016 - "On March 1st, The Atlas Society welcomed Jennifer Anju Grossman as its new CEO.... Grossman is a former senior vice president at Dole Food Company....

"David Kelley, founder and acting CEO of the Atlas Society, said: 'Jennifer brings our team a powerful combination of executive management, public policy, and digital media expertise. Her creativity, charisma and commitment to Objectivism will help take our efforts, and the liberty movement, to the next level.'

"Grossman has spent decades helping people to live freer, healthier lives. She launched the Dole Nutrition Institute — a research and education organization — at the behest of Dole Chairman David H. Murdock. She continued this agenda as Health Editor of Laura Ingraham's new lifestyle site, LifeZette.

"Previously Grossman served as Director of Education at the Cato Institute, and worked closely with the late philanthropist Theodore J. Forstmann to launch the Children's Scholarship Fund. A speechwriter for President George H. W. Bush, Grossman has written for both national and local publications.

"Said Grossman: 'The principles of Objectivism, the philosophy rooted in reality, reason, and individualism, has never been more needed — nor more neglected.This is the perfect moment to help the public rediscover the moral vision of Ayn Rand."

"For twenty-five years, The Atlas Society has promoted the core values of Objectivism — reason, achievement, and ethical self-interest. These values are the moral foundation for political liberty and for personal happiness.

"'At the Atlas Society,' said Jay Lapeyre, Chairman of the Board of the Atlas Society, 'we don't preach to the converted. We hired Jennifer to lead our team in bringing Ayn Rand's revolutionary vision to fresh eyes, in unconventional ways'....

"Objectivism is the philosophy founded by Ayn Rand (1905-1982), the author of Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, The Virtue of Selfishness, and other works.

Read more: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2016/03/prweb13242310.htm
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District court judge strikes down DC gun-carry ban

Tom Palmer: Meet the libertarians who keep beating D.C.'s gun laws in court, like in the Heller case and Palmer v. D.C. David Wiegel, Slate:

July 28, 2014 - "At the end of last week, Senior District Court Judge Frederick Scullin Jr. handed a huge victory to D.C.'s outnumbered supporters of unfettered Second Amendment rights. The district's handgun restrictions, wrote Scullin, flew in the face of precedent. 'In light of Heller, McDonald, and their progeny,' wrote Scullin, referring to other cases that rolled back the gun laws, 'there is no longer any basis on which this Court can conclude that the District of Columbia's total ban on the public carrying of ready-to-use handguns outside the home is constitutional under any level of scrutiny.' The District was violating the Constitution by refusing to let people from other states open-carry or conceal-carry their guns....

"Palmer v. District of Columbia is mostly interesting as the second example in just a few days of libertarian lawyers dunking on the liberal state. Tom Palmer, listed first among the plaintiffs, is the director of the libertarian Cato University program, and a vice president of the Randian Atlas Society. He was a plaintiff in the Heller case, too; in attorney Alan Gura's words, he was 'a gay man who had previously, in California, fended off a hate crime using a firearm that he happened to have on him.'"

Read more: http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2014/07/28/meet_the_libertarians_who_keep_beating_d_c_s_gun_laws_in_court.html
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Read the decision: http://ia600408.us.archive.org/2/items/gov.uscourts.dcd.137887/gov.uscourts.dcd.137887.51.0.pdf

Was John Galt modeled on Jesus?

Ayn Rand's Libertarian Hero John Galt Was Modeled on Jesus, Christian Panelist Argues:

"[A]t at the International Students for Liberty Conference in Washington D.C. Feb. 15, 2014 ...  Christian panelist, David Kotter, argued that Ayn Rand's libertarian hero John Galt was unconsciously modeled on Jesus Christ. A follower of Rand, William R. Thomas, agreed that Galt was modeled after Christ, but argued that Rand consciously intended to do so.

"Kotter, visiting scholar at The Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics, insisted that Rand did base her character off of Jesus, although she likely did it unconsciously. .... 'Ayn Rand imbibed ideas from the character of Jesus," Kotter declared. He described Galt as 'the man who by perfect reason is the epitome of manhood, and is very similar to Jesus.'

"'In John Galt, Rand is trying to portray man as a god in an irreligious sense," Thomas, director of programs at The Atlas Society, declared.... Thomas added that 'I don't think she would have said she endorsed Jesus Christ.

"Mark Henderson, author of The Soul of Atlas: Ayn Rand, Christianity, a Quest for Common Ground, referenced Theologian John Piper to explain where Rand's philosophy can agree with Christianity. Henderson quoted ... Piper's essay 'Ayn Rand: An Appreciation and Critique,' where the theologian argued that 'all throughout scripture there are evidences of believers pursuing their own interest by pursuing God.'"

Read more: http://www.christianpost.com/news/ayn-rands-libertarian-hero-john-galt-was-modeled-on-jesus-christian-panelist-argues-114729/

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