The Orphan Wilde

I figure I should start this off with a question:

Who am I?

I am not you.

I am a selfish bastard whose perspective on the world is defined solely by the world as I see it.

This doesn't make me different from you.  The difference is that I am willing to admit it.

My opponents might describe me as a greedy misanthropist capitalist bastard who doesn't care about all the people in the world who desperately need help.  This... approximates the truth.

I don't care about them.  I want to create a world which would help them, but I don't care.  But they would be better off under me than under those currently running things.  Not because I care, but because I don't - because my reasoning is rational, rather than emotional.

So who am I, the Orphan Wilde?  I am an atheistic capitalist.  I would describe myself as an Objectivist, and frequently do, but despise many of those who share the name, much as I despise many who would call themselves atheists - I find that Ayn Rand has unintentionally created a cult following, a group of people who blindly follow every rule in her philosophy except the only rule she ever actually laid out - to think for yourself.  I am an admirer of Ayn Rand, and I have yet to find something she has written I strongly disagree with - but I'm not so fond of her fan club.

I don't fit into any club, really.

I am an ex-socialist liberal turned capitalist, having outgrown universal love in the Bush era, when I saw how stupid the people I supposedly agreed with actually were, and so confronted my own philosophical basis - I hate Bush, but I hate the people who hate Bush even more.  I am a genius.  I am an atheist.  I am a bisexual male.  I was born in Texas and own a revolver.  I am a capitalist.  I believe in equal rights, but have developed contempt for the modern feminist movement.  I believe in the death penalty.  I opposed the War in Iraq, but once began, I opposed withdrawing.  I will shoot you dead if I think you are a threat to my friends and family, my life, or my property.  I prefer to carry handcuffs with my gun so that in a more ambiguous situation I have an alternative to killing you.  I keep my money in a bank account, and do not like carrying cash.  I wouldn't be surprised if some poor fool in the government was assigned to read my rambling blog - and I wouldn't be surprised if they've forgotten about the existence of that fourteen year old kid who they sent brochures for West Point to.  (Apparently they can process ASVAB scores, but equally apparent their databases aren't the best in the world.)

I date online exclusively, valuing the efficiency of excluding hippies and liberals and fundamentalists out of hand, not that it is relevant right now.

I think Richard Dawkins is a bit of a prat.

I have a love-hate relationship with the Mormon church.  On the one hand, they're religious and oppose gay marriage (that's the hate side of the relationship).  On the other, they believe -fervently- in free will, both religious and political - their version of Satan is a caricature of the modern liberal (and was designed before the modern liberal came into being) and they (variably - there's difference of interpretation) believe God was once human, and that humans can become gods, who go on to rule their own universes or something.  And He has a wife!  Who was deliberately kept out of scripture by God because otherwise he'd have to kick the asses of everybody for blaspheming his love, as would undoubtedly happen.  (Actually, not only does He have a wife, having a wife/husband is actually a necessary element of becoming a god for men and women, respectively.)  But then there's the whole magic hat thing, which is either ridiculous or insanely awesome, I can't decide.

I am skeptical of climatology.  I believe the historical records suggest carbon dioxide is a capable feedback effect, able to produce warmer temperatures, but -not- a climate driver - that is, not potent enough to produce the kind of runaway warming predicted by some of today's climatologists.  I am worried that the state of climatology is sliding in a very bad way, and that it is going to (or already has begun to) smear real science with its scientific mismanagement - helped along by the state of affairs which caused a lot of scientists to defend it against the perceived enemies of science when they shouldn't have, a defense which is today being messily retracted.

I guess it follows that I am pro-science, without being pro-scientist; indeed, I have contempt for anybody who would refer to him or herself as a scientist.

I believe in drug legalization but not regulation.  I believe in the abolishment of the income tax, and the abolishment of 70% of the Federal Government.  I oppose all foreign wars except ones we are already involved in - as I believe we have a moral responsibility to mitigate the damage we have caused derived from the fact that we have caused said damage.  I do not believe in foreign aid.

I do not believe in positive rights - the only valid rights are those which do not contradict others.

I am a philosophical orphan - my beliefs are my own, and I arrived at them on my own, without guidance from philosophers.  (Hence my name here.)  Ayn Rand did not teach me my philosophy - what she taught me was that I was not alone in it.